


my youth is yours

by SweetTveitoPie



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Best Friends, Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, in which enjolras' mother isn't a bitch, just a ridiculously self-indulgent childhood friends-to-lovers au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-19
Updated: 2017-12-19
Packaged: 2019-02-17 02:17:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 26,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13067052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SweetTveitoPie/pseuds/SweetTveitoPie
Summary: Their story begins on a playground.





	1. fire truck

**Author's Note:**

> wassup?? ya gal's back with more fanfic, this time ANOTHER modern AU!!!! title inspired by troye sivan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The little boy with the sapphire eyes meets the little girl with the dimpled smile for the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's a very self-indulgent childhood friends-to-lovers modern AU inspired by [this tumblr post](http://adribug.tumblr.com/post/133239649529/best-things-about-the-childhood-best)
> 
> ages: four and three

Their story begins on a playground.

Gabriel Enjolras is alone on the swings, watching his fellow classmates running around and playing together just after his mother drops him off. His parents had enrolled him in kindergarten just a few weeks prior to his fourth birthday in the hopes that he would make some friends, but he never did. Instead, he’s called names for having a big head and for not really socialising, and so far, he hasn’t made a single friend that wasn’t the teacher with golden hair just like his who let him eat ice cream with her in the classroom during recess.

The nice teacher, Mademoiselle Fantine, is sitting at the edge of the playground, looking at the children running about and checking to make sure they don’t hurt themselves. Gabriel swings back and forth, his vision of the other kids partially obscured by the golden curls falling in his face. He thinks about how none of the kids in his class had come to his fourth birthday party a couple of weeks ago and how he had to talk to his parents’ friends’ children, who seemed to mock him as much as the kids at kindergarten do.

He then notices a little girl with dark brown hair, a girl he had never seen before, who seems a tad bit younger than him playing alone with one of the little toy fire trucks, and he watches as one of the bigger boys and his little crew approach her. They seem to talk down to her, and Gabriel strains his ears to try to hear what they’re saying.

“Why are you playing with that?” one of the bigger boys sneers, kicking the truck down. “Those are for _boys_!”

The little girl glares up at him and crosses her arms across her chest, replying defiantly, “Girls can play with boy toys too. Mademoiselle Fantine gave this to me to keep.”

“That’s weird!” another one of the boys pipes up. “They’re called _boy_ toys. For boys!”

“I like boy toys,” the girl tells him, picking up the truck and hugging it to her chest. “Go away.”

“I want the truck!” another boy yells; it seems that that had been the reason they had approached the girl in the first place, Gabriel thinks. “Give it to me!”

“I had it first,” the girl says, holding the toy firetruck to her chest. “You have to wait your turn.”

“I want it now!” the boy insists, reaching out for it as the girl backs away. “You go play with the Barbies!”

“You have to wait your turn,” the girl repeats, glaring at the boy. “I don’t want to play with the Barbies right now. I want to play with the fire truck.”

“That’s a boy toy,” another boy tells her, grabbing it despite her protests and trying to wrench it from her hands. “You’re not a boy.”

Gabriel looks to see if Mlle Fantine had noticed the boys trying to take the truck away from the girl, and when he sees that it seems like she hadn’t, he gets off the swing and marches up to those bigger boys, managing to get himself between them and the girl and telling them fiercely, “She had it first. You wait your turn.”

The bigger boys stare at him incredulously before one of them laughs, asking, “Is that your _girlfriend_ , Airhead? Tell her to give us the truck.”

“She had it first,” Gabriel repeats, stung by the cruel nickname. “She wants to play with it. Let her play with it.”

“What’s going on here?” They all look up to find Mlle Fantine looking down at them with a look of confusion, and Gabriel immediately begins to explain before the other boys could.

“They say that girls can’t play with boy toys,” he explains to Mlle Fantine. “They tried to take the fire truck from her.”

“Boys, I gave Éponine that fire truck to keep. There are plenty of other toys for you to play with,” Mlle Fantine chides, gesturing for the boys to walk aside with her so she could talk to them. Gabriel turns back to the little girl, who’s clutching the fire truck like it was a lifeline. When he reaches out for her, she takes a step back, her brow furrowed in suspicion.

“What do you want?” she asks bitingly, holding the fire truck tighter in her arms.

“What’s your name?” he questions, cocking his head, his blue eyes wide.

She’s intrigued by his bright blue eyes—they’re the bluest eyes she’s ever seen, and they go quite nicely with his curly blond hair. He’s cute, she thinks—chubby red cheeks, a rather big head, and a little gap between his two front teeth. “Éponine,” she replies at last, gazing at him with a look of wonder in her eyes. “What’s yours?”

“I’m Gabriel,” he tells her, smiling.

Éponine cocks her head at him, a fascinated little grin gracing her lips, and Gabriel sees that she has dimples. Gabriel really gets a good look at her—she has long, wavy brown hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. She’s shorter than him, with pudgy cheeks and fingers and a little grin on her face. “I like you,” she decides out loud. “Do you want to play trucks with me?”

Gabriel quickly nods yes, thinking he finally made a friend as Éponine leads him to the sandbox and gives him another one of the trucks there. They sit in the sand, building sandcastles when they’re not playing with the trucks and pretending to run each other over, laughing, and so begins their friendship.


	2. new friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first day of primary school is scary for most, but everything's better with your best friend by your side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ages: six

They’re best friends by the time they start primary school.

Éponine holds Gabriel’s hand as his mother escorts them into the big, scary building they had gotten off the car at. Over the course of the past three years, Éponine and Gabriel became best friends, and though Éponine’s parents don’t like Gabriel’s parents very much, that never stopped them from having frequent playdates and sleeping over at each other’s houses. Éponine likes Gabriel’s big, roomy mansion—there’s a lot of room to run around, and she likes sleeping next to him in his big bed. Though his father doesn’t seem to like her very much, his mother loves her, and she always has a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies ready for Éponine whenever she comes over. Gabriel, on the other hand, prefers Éponine’s nice little apartment—it’s spacious enough to accommodate two parents and three children, with each child having their own room. He likes Éponine’s little siblings, Azelma and Gavroche, never having had any siblings of his own. He also loves sharing Éponine’s twin-size bed with her whenever he sleeps over, and the two of them like to go up to the roof of her apartment to look out at the Paris rooftops.

Éponine and Gabriel follow Madame Enjolras to a classroom, their hands clasped tight, and soon they find themselves in a classroom full of other children. Two teachers are talking to some parents that came with their kids, and Éponine quickly spots a little blonde girl in the corner.

“Isn’t that Mademoiselle Fantine’s daughter?” she whispers to Gabriel, gesturing towards the blonde girl.

Gabriel looks and nods. “I think it is,” he replies quietly.

She’s a mousy, tiny little thing—wavy golden hair partially covering her face, big blue eyes, rosy cheeks, a little blouse and skirt, and a pair of Mary Janes. She’s kind of pretty, Éponine supposes, if not a bit thin and frail-looking. Éponine doesn’t know her name.

“This is my son, Gabriel Enjolras,” they hear Madame Enjolras saying to one of the teachers. “And this is his friend, Éponine Thénardier. Her parents couldn’t make it today.”

Éponine and Gabriel exchange looks as his mother converses with the teacher, and soon, she’s bending down to give them both kisses on the forehead. Éponine wishes that Madame Enjolras was her own mother sometimes. “Have fun today, _mon coeur_ ,” Madame Enjolras whispers to Gabriel, giving him one more kiss on the forehead before she turns to Éponine. “You too, Éponine. Look after each other.”

“Yes, Maman,” Gabriel replies dutifully, smiling up at his mother and showing the gap in his teeth. Éponine giggles.

Éponine and Gabriel, still tightly holding hands, watch as Madame Enjolras exits the classroom, and once the woman was out of view, Éponine looks around at the room. It looks nice, with colourful posters upon the walls, little multicoloured chairs at round tables, books on shelves, bean bags and rugs, and sunlight streaming in through the windows. She decides that she likes it, and she turns to Gabriel.

“Do you like it?” she asks, her big brown eyes gazing straight into his blue.

“Yes, I think,” he replies, turning when the teacher calls for their attention. She tells the class to find seats and to use the paper and crayons available to make name-tags. Éponine immediately pulls Gabriel towards a table in the corner and they take seats next to each other, and the girl Éponine identified earlier as their old kindergarten teacher’s daughter and a boy with fair hair and glasses joins them there. They all sit in silence, looking at each other with curiosity in their eyes.

Éponine wastes no time in making her name-tag, printing her full name in green crayon as neatly as possible as the others at her table do the same. Once she’s done, she pins it onto her shirt and looks at Gabriel, who had also finished his at the same time she did. They look around the room and watch their classmates pin their name-tags onto their clothes, squinting to see the names of their various classmates. Éponine learns that Mlle Fantine’s daughter’s name is Cosette, and the boy with the glasses is named Julien Combeferre.

“Hi, I’m Éponine,” she pipes up, hoping to start a conversation. Cosette merely stares back at her with a blank look in her eyes, and so Éponine tries, “What’s your name?”

“Cosette,” the tiny blonde girl replies in a barely audible voice, avoiding eye contact. She’s shy, it seems.

“I’m Julien,” the boy with the glasses offers, looking back and forth between Éponine and Gabriel. “And you are?”

“I’m Gabriel,” the golden-haired boy replies, smiling rather tightly. Under the table, Éponine squeezes his hand in reassurance, and he turns his head to smile gratefully at her.

“Do you know each other?” Julien asks, cocking his head. Éponine nods.

“I knew Gabriel since he was four and I was three!” she tells Julien, grinning and displaying a missing tooth. Julien laughs.

“Are you best friends?” he asks, fidgeting slightly with his name-tag.

“Ever since kindergarten,” Gabriel confirms. “We met because of bullies on the playground. They used to call me Airhead.”

“Well, your head _is_ kind of big,” they hear Cosette say softly, and they all turn to stare at her. She turns red and hides her face in her hands, embarrassed that they heard, and Éponine, Gabriel, and Julien all burst out laughing.

“Let’s be friends,” Éponine declares, reaching out with her other hand for Julien’s. Both Julien and Cosette nod in agreement, the latter seeming rather surprised at the offer of friendship.

Gabriel smiles. His best friend really is the best.


	3. sleepover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, they still have sleepovers. Your point is...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ages: twelve and eleven.

Éponine laughs when she finds out Gabriel had to get braces.

She sits at the edge of his bed with him; the both of them are playing Mario Kart as if their lives depended on it, and Éponine thinks Gabriel actually has some sweat on his brow due to how hard he’s concentrating. It’s the eve of his twelfth birthday, and though she now lives in the slums after her parents lost everything, she and Gabriel never stopped being friends, and she’s sleeping over for the weekend for his birthday. His snobby, elitist father is still as cold and indifferent as ever, but Éponine doesn’t mind—Gabriel’s mother still dotes on her like a daughter and spoils her with cookies and little presents, such as hair accessories and books, and that’s all the attention she needs from Gabriel’s parents.

Éponine crows in triumph when she finally manages to race past Gabriel and beat him to the finish line in first place while he finishes in fourth. He lets out a good-natured groan as she tosses the controller aside, declaring jubilantly, “I beat you! I beat you, Gabriel Enjolras!”

He laughs as she playfully pummels him in the shoulder, and that’s when she first notices his braces. “Holy shit, did you get braces?” she asks in amazement, stopping her bouncing to stare at him.

“Language, firecracker,” Gabriel chides, chuckling when she makes a face. Some time ago, he nicknamed her firecracker as a result of her feisty, fiery personality, and it just stuck. “Yeah, I got braces. What about them?”

Éponine falls silent for a moment and sits back down, mulling things over in her mind before she reaches over to grab Gabriel’s glasses off his nightstand. She puts them on for him and tells him to smile, and when he does, she laughs and says, “Now you look like a nerd on the outside like you are on the inside.”

“Hey!” Gabriel pretends to be offended, grabbing one of his pillows and whacking Éponine over the head with it as she dissolves into hysterical giggles, falling onto her side and laughing when Gabriel continues to hit her with a pillow. She grabs another pillow and sits up to hit him back, sparking a full-fledged pillow fight, and soon they’re both shouting and bouncing around on his huge bed, repeatedly attempting to knock each other off balance with the pillows in their hands. They’re so busy whacking each other with pillows, they don’t notice Gabriel’s mother come in with a plate of cookies and two glasses of milk.

“Gabriel! Éponine!” Madame Enjolras calls, causing the both of them to stop short. Their eyes light up at the sight of the cookies, and they jump off the bed to run up to Madame Enjolras, taking the milk and cookies from her while hurriedly saying their thanks, jumping back onto the bed to dip their cookies in the milk. Madame Enjolras laughs at the sight of the both of them chatting animatedly and munching on their cookies, and she walks over to give them both kisses on the forehead before exiting. “Good night, you two.”

“Good night!”

Once Madame Enjolras has closed the door behind her, Éponine places her half-empty glass of milk on the dresser so she wouldn’t accidentally knock it over if she put it on the nightstand and finishes her cookies before grabbing her pillow and starting the pillow fight all over again. Gabriel ducks, laughing, and soon they’re engaged in another violent pillow fight as they attempt to knock each other off their feet. Eventually, they both collapse on the bed, laughing despite being completely out of breath. Éponine rolls onto her side to face Gabriel, and she curls up as he rolls on his side to face her as well.

“It’s almost midnight,” Éponine whispers to him, booping him on the nose and grinning when she manages to draw a little laugh from him. “It’s almost your birthday.”

“You’re my best friend, ’Ponine,” Gabriel tells her softly, taking her hand and squeezing it. A huge yawn escapes his lips, and he murmurs, “We should go to sleep.”

The both of them crawl under the covers after Gabriel takes off his glasses to place on the nightstand, and Éponine begins to reflect on the past several years—she’s known Gabriel for about eight years now, and they’ve been best friends for as long as she could remember. In primary school, she remembers how they formed strong friendships with Cosette, Julien Combeferre, and two other boys and a girl named Adrien Courfeyrac, Jehan Prouvaire, and Musichetta Chevalier respectively, and to this day, they’re all still extremely close and have made some other friends in the secondary school they all attend together, those other friends being Auguste Joly and a boy who simply went by Bossuet. Éponine and Gabriel still remain the closest together, since they’ve known each other for the longest time.

They’ve grown quite a bit—Éponine, much to Gabriel’s chagrin, is currently an inch taller than him, and she’s on the brink of puberty while he’s still this scrawny kid with golden hair, big nerd glasses, and braces. Éponine finds it kind of cute, not that she’d ever say it to him. They’re best friends; it would be weird.

Gabriel faces Éponine as they pull the covers up to their chins, and he laughs when she makes a ridiculous face. “Good night, firecracker,” he whispers, curling into a foetal position. “Love you.”

Éponine yawns, replying, “Good night, nerd. Love you, too.”

The two of them soon fall into a deep, dream-filled sleep, each of them comforted by the mere presence of the other.


	4. coming out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The two of them realise they're not as heterosexual as they previously thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case my other fics didn't make it clear that none of them are straight (good lord what a nightmare can u imagine *shudders*), here's a coming out chapter!! they're both fourteen in this one, there's an extremely brief period mention too

When they’re fourteen, Éponine realises she’s not entirely what society deems as “normal”.

She and Gabriel are sitting on the roof of his mansion, looking out over the rooftops as twilight falls upon Paris. She’s mad about the fact that she’s stopped growing while he continues to grow taller than her, and he likes to see her all riled up about how he’s growing taller while she isn’t anymore. It’s a nice, breezy spring evening, and they’re on spring break from school, and she takes the opportunity to spend almost all of her time at his place. Her home situation has gotten progressively worse, with her father branching out into physical abuse as well as emotional, and she’s begun to consider Gabriel her safe space as the days pass by.

Éponine’s head is resting on his shoulder and their fingers are intertwined as they dangle their legs over the edge of the roof, gazing at the pigeons flying around and the Eiffel Tower in the distance. Gabriel tells her of how he’s considering going by his last name at school, but she doesn’t quite listen, lost in her own thoughts. When he realises she hasn’t been responding for some time, he asks in concern, “Is everything okay?”

Éponine sighs, thinking back to the times she’s been confused about her sexuality. Yes, she’s experienced attraction to boys plenty of times, but she also finds herself attracted to girls just as much, what with a little crush on Musichetta back when they were thirteen, and she wonders how someone can be attracted to multiple genders at the same time. She’s done some research—after being raised with the idea that people could only be totally gay or totally straight, she did some digging and found that, in fact, those are only two options out of plenty. She read more into bisexuality, finding that bisexual folks have higher rates of suicide, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and substance abuse, and that absolutely terrifies her to no end. Taking a deep breath, she lifts her head to gaze into his piercing blue eyes and she says at last, “Gabriel, can I tell you something?”

He raises his eyebrows in surprise, and Éponine’s rather taken aback by how unexpectedly cute he looks when he does that. He still has his braces, but he expects that they’ll come off soon, and he’s traded out his nerd glasses for thin, rectangular glasses that suit his face shape better. He’s still kind of skinny, though, but Éponine expects that that will change soon enough.

 _Wait, no!_ Éponine mentally berates herself. She’s supposed to be coming out to him instead of thinking about how she suddenly, inexplicably finds him rather attractive, damn it!

“You can tell me anything, firecracker,” he tells her, giving her hand a friendly squeeze. “I’m your best friend, remember? Always have been, always will be.”

Éponine smiles and requests quietly, “Please don’t judge me or—or not believe me. Just listen.”

Gabriel nodded, squeezing her hand yet again. She tries to ignore how butterflies seem to erupt in her stomach when he does that. After a few moments of mentally preparing herself, she tells him in a barely audible whisper, “Gabriel, I think I’m not straight.”

He falls silent, seeming rather surprised at that, and before he could ask a question, Éponine rapidly continues, “I mean, I still like boys, but I also like girls, though I never realised before it due to this heteronormative world we live in. Gabriel, I’m pretty sure I’m bisexual.” She holds her breath, waiting for a response from her oldest, dearest friend, hoping their friendship wouldn’t crumble just because of this.

She’s shocked when he merely laughs, and when she asks why he’s laughing, he responds, “’Ponine, did you really think I’d judge you just because of that? You’re my best friend no matter what, Éponine, and I’ll always love you.” _Maybe not completely platonically,_ Gabriel catches himself thinking before he forces himself to brush that thought aside, wondering why the hell he was thinking such things.

Éponine’s well into puberty at that point; she’s developed some curves and her hair is thicker and more lustrous than ever. She also seems to have stopped growing at the height of 5’4, but that’s irrelevant.

Gabriel’s always known that Éponine’s a pretty girl, but he’s never paid any attention to it before now, when they’re finishing their last year of _collège_ before moving on to _lycée_. Maybe it’s because he’s going through puberty himself, but he really begins to acknowledge the fact that Éponine is cute—one might even describe her as beautiful. It feels odd—they’ve known each other the longest out of all of their friends, and here they are, watching one another grow into young adults and develop. He still remembers how she first came complaining to him about how she’s started her period when they were thirteen, and that was when he began to carry pads around with him for her.

Wait, where is this train of thought supposed to be going?

Éponine cocks her head at how Gabriel has fallen silent for some reason, and he regains his composure, stating again, “’Ponine, I’ll always love you, and you realising you’re bisexual will not change anything. You’re my firecracker. I’ll always love you. This isn’t going to change anything. I promise.” He leans in and whispers, “I don’t think I’m straight either.”

Éponine raises an eyebrow, not having expected such a confession from him. “Oh?”

“I don’t know,” Gabriel sighs, leaning back on his hands. “I looked a lot of stuff up, and I think I’m… demisexual? Pansexual demisexual, I think.”

“What’s demisexuality?” Éponine asks curiously, scooting closer.

“Sexual attraction only after you’ve developed an emotional connection,” Gabriel explains. Éponine cocks her head, rather perplexed.

“How can you be pansexual _and_ demisexual at the same time?” she questions. “I’m sorry if I’m being nosy, by the way. You don’t have to explain your identity if you don’t want to.”

“Oh, no, it’s completely fine,” he assures her, taking her hand in his and squeezing it. “Basically, I can be sexually attracted to anyone regardless of gender, but only once I’ve developed an emotional bond with that person, otherwise it’ll just be romantic attraction.”

Éponine nods in understanding, intrigued by this new information. “Interesting.”

She smiles at him and allows him to kiss her forehead and pull her into a tight embrace right there on the edge of the roof, and she discreetly breathes in his scent as he strokes her hair. She can’t help but think about how right it feels to be in his arms—he was her home, her safe space, and she could safely assume that she was the same for him. She ignores how fast her heart is beating in favour of just basking in Gabriel’s embrace, and as dusk rapidly falls upon the sleepy city, she murmurs softly, “My Gabriel.”


	5. relationshit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Éponine gets her first boyfriend and Courfeyrac is convinced that Enjolras is jealous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: brief mentions of abuse and cheating
> 
> ages:  
> \- fifteen and sixteen at the beginning  
> \- sixteen and going on seventeen at the end

At the beginning of their first year of _lycée_ , Éponine gets her first boyfriend.

Enjolras, who has started going by his last name and has gotten used to everyone besides Éponine and his parents calling him that, has absolutely no idea why he feels like clenching his fists whenever he sees her in the hallways with _him_ , making out against the lockers, and though he still spends most of his time with Éponine, she tells him that her boyfriend, Montparnasse—a guy in the year above them with piercings, greasy jet-black hair, a leather jacket, ripped jeans, and a horrid attitude that screams trouble—is jealous of him for being Éponine’s best, closest friend and the one she still spends most of her time with. Enjolras hates himself for it, but he’s secretly pleased.

One day, he’s supposed to meet Éponine at her locker to go to his place to do their homework together like they’ve always done, but instead, he meets Montparnasse there, posturing and acting all haughty and intimidating. Enjolras hasn’t gotten his braces off yet, expecting them to come off in a year or two, and it seems that he’s a late bloomer, judging by how all of the guys in his and Éponine’s friend group have all had growth spurts while Enjolras is still a skinny little thing, and he holds his books tight to his chest as Montparnasse towers above him.

“Listen, bourgeois boy,” the dark-haired boy growls, clenching his fists. Truth be told, Enjolras is taken aback by the blunt way he says it. “Stay the fuck away from _my_ girlfriend.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to do that,” Enjolras responds evenly, narrowing his eyes at Montparnasse. “I’ve been her best friend since kindergarten, and nothing you say can change that.”

“Well, you need to stop spending time with her,” Montparnasse responds fiercely. “She’s _mine_. _I’m_ her boyfriend, don’t forget.”

“Éponine is not something to be owned,” Enjolras states, struggling not to lose his temper. Honestly, what does Éponine see in this asshole? “She’s her own person, and even if you are her boyfriend, you don’t own her.”

“What’s going on?” Enjolras turns his head to see Éponine approaching them, her brow furrowed in confusion. He musters a grin as she approaches, looking back and forth between him and Montparnasse.

“Just talking,” Montparnasse replies, his whole demeanour changing instantly as he gives her a toothy smile. Enjolras’s smile falters when Éponine puts her arms around Montparnasse’s neck and kisses him in greeting, and he walks away, feeling sick to the stomach for some unexplainable reason. As he trudges down the hallways, clutching his books to his chest, he’s approached by Adrien Courfeyrac—who started going by his last name like all of the other boys did when they first started _lycée_.

“Is something wrong, Enjy?” Courfeyrac asks, ruffling Enjolras’s curly golden hair and laughing at the look on his face. “You seem kind of out of it.”

“It’s Éponine’s stupid boyfriend,” he mutters, stiffening slightly when Courfeyrac puts an arm around him. “What does she see in him? Maybe he’s not as much of an asshole to her as he is to most people, or maybe he has a fake personality for when he’s with her so she won’t suspect anything. I just—I wish I could show her how terrible he is, but she’d never believe me, and her boyfriend’s all possessive and shit now just because I’m her best friend.”

“He feels threatened by you,” Courfeyrac guesses. Enjolras nods.

“What does she see in him?” he repeats, searching his mind for any positive attributes Montparnasse has been shown to have and finding none. “He smokes cigarettes behind the bleachers every day! God, I hope she hasn’t been smoking with him…” He couldn’t bear the thought of his best friend since childhood smoking with that jerk. Yes, she’s developed a bit of a rebellious attitude, but so has he as they grew more aware of the countless problems in the world, and she would never smoke, even though smoking seems to be considered the epitome of edgy rebelliousness. At least, he hopes she would never smoke. “He’s such a jerk. What does he have, really? A pocket knife? I’ve seen him go around and threaten people with it, why is she—”

“You’re jealous,” Courfeyrac informs him frankly, cutting Enjolras off. The golden-haired boy falls silent at Courfeyrac’s words, trying to come up with a response.

“Am not,” he denies, pulling away from the other boy.

“Yes, you are,” Courfeyrac insists, pulling Enjolras aside to stand by a row of lockers. “You like her.”

Enjolras’s mouth goes dry, and he manages to stammer out, “I—I’ve always liked her. We’ve been friends forever, of course I like her.”

“Oh, come off it, Enjolras, you know exactly what I’m talking about!” Courfeyrac huffs impatiently, crossing his arms across his chest and fixing Enjolras with a pointed stare. “You _like_ her like her. Don’t even try to deny it.”

“Just because she and I are best friends doesn’t mean I have a crush on her,” Enjolras replies flatly. “You only think I do because I’m a boy and she’s a girl and we’ve been best friends for nearly our whole lives, so of course that _has_ to lead to us getting into a relationship _eventually_ because in this society apparently boys and girls can’t just be friends.” Never mind that he's starting to think he might actually like Éponine in _that_ way, that's completely irrelevant.

“I see the look in your eyes whenever you see her with that asshole boyfriend of hers,” Courfeyrac tells Enjolras. “Pure, unadulterated envy right there. You want what he’s having, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t,” Enjolras stoutly denies, rolling his eyes and walking away before Courfeyrac could say another word.

A year passes by, and Enjolras can’t even look Éponine in the eye whenever she’s with Montparnasse. The smug grin on Montparnasse’s face whenever he notices Enjolras avoiding eye contact with him and Éponine when he passes by them is too much to bear, and Enjolras never wants to see him again, much less with Éponine. The fact that he’s been spending less time with his best friend disheartens him greatly, and he misses their sleepovers.

Yes, they still have sleepovers. Said sleepovers have become less and less frequent, though, as she became more involved with Montparnasse, and his heart aches for her.

He finally gets his braces off just a few weeks before he turns seventeen in October, and his father allows him to trade out his glasses for contacts. He starts working out at the insistence of his father, and when he comes back from summer break, he’s finally had a significant growth spurt, his head finally doesn’t look too big for his body anymore, and he’s also developed some muscle. Girls and guys alike are beginning to notice his newfound attractiveness by the second week of his second year of _lycée_ , and all the unwanted attention has made him quite aloof and indifferent to those he doesn’t know. His friends have begun to tease him about it, talking about how he used to be this scrawny little kid with a big head and how they had no idea that he’d grow to become such a fine, handsome fella. Most of the cheerleaders have started to fawn over him despite the fact that he doesn’t do any sports, and the boys on the soccer team have threatened him and told him to stay away from their precious cheerleader girlfriends.

He really couldn’t give two shits about it.

It’s a breezy autumn Saturday night, almost midnight, and Enjolras is sitting alone at the edge of the roof of his massive mansion, his legs dangling off the edge as usual. He misses Éponine. He misses Éponine terribly. Maybe a bit too much.

It’s not that they never spend time together anymore—they’re still very much best friends, and they still love each other a lot. Little does she know that the love on his part isn’t purely platonic anymore, but he digresses. She’s begun to come to school with visible bruises and occasionally scars all over her body, to Enjolras’s horror, and she refuses to talk about it and tell him who’s been giving her bruises and scars. He notices that Montparnasse has grown extremely possessive of Éponine, threatening anyone who dares to even look in her direction. It seriously worries Enjolras.

Lost in thought, he almost doesn’t hear the sound of Éponine’s voice behind him.

“Gabriel?” He turns around to find her walking over to sit beside him on that roof, crossing her legs and shivering slightly from the breeze. She barely ever calls him Enjolras; she’s one of only three people who still call him by his first name, besides his mother and asshole father. “Your mom told me you were up here,” she explains when he gives her a questioning look. Uncrossing her legs, she dangles them over the edge like he’s doing as she lays her head on his shoulder, letting out a defeated, long-winded sigh. His breath catches in his throat when her hand finds its way into his, their fingers intertwined.

“Won’t Montparnasse be mad?” Enjolras asks softly as Éponine’s thumb rubs circles into his palm.

“We broke up,” she replies dully, her voice cracking on the last word. To Enjolras’s dismay, she begins to cry.

The sound of her quiet weeping breaks his heart, and instinctively, he pulls her into a tight hug, allowing her to bury her head in his chest as she cries her eyes out, trembling. She feels safe in his embrace, and she whimpers, “I don’t know what I did wrong. He cheated on me, Gabriel. I found him in the bleachers, making out with this boy from the soccer team, so I ended it.” She pulls away to pull up her sleeve, revealing an angry red mark on her forearm. “He hit me.” She shakes with more sobs, and Enjolras holds her close, angry at himself for not attempting to help her more and angry at Montparnasse for fucking around with her so much. “He cheated on me, and then _he_ had the fucking nerve to hit _me_ when I broke up with him because of it. I never did anything wrong. I gave him my fucking _virginity_ , and he went and cheated on me.”

Enjolras feels a sinking feeling in his stomach at the thought of Éponine doing it with Montparnasse, fully believing that Montparnasse doesn’t deserve this wonderful, perfect girl. “I’m so sorry, firecracker,” he whispers, stroking her hair as she weeps noiselessly, heartbroken. “Did he give you all those bruises over the past few months?”

“Yes,” she mumbles into his chest. “Him and my dad.” Shaking with renewed sobs, she murmurs, “I’m so sorry for spending less time with you, Gabriel. I’m the worst best friend ever.”

“It’s okay,” he replies quietly, even though it wasn’t, really. At the moment, he just wants to make her feel better. “We’re still best friends. Always have been, always will be, remember?”

Éponine lets out a shaky laugh and looks up, gazing into his blue eyes and reaching up to cup his jaw as she observes just how much he’s changed—she could feel his muscles through his shirt, and he’s about 5’10 now. It’s amazing how puberty can change someone almost entirely. His heart nearly stops at how close she is, their faces mere inches apart, and he feels butterflies in his stomach as she says softly, “Look at you. You were this little kid with a giant head. Now you’re such a handsome fella.” She laughs at the look on his face and kisses his cheek, a habit she had picked up over the years. “I love you, Gabriel.”

 _She means it in a platonic way,_ Enjolras convinces himself. They’ve said it a lot to each other over the years; even if the way he means it has changed, there’s no reason to believe that hers has. “I love you too, ’Ponine.”

He hugs her even tighter than before, and she feels like she’s home.


	6. time capsule

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Les Amis decide to make a time capsule.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> age: seventeen going on eighteen

At the end of the summer before their last year of _lycée_ , Les Amis de l’ABC, as they’ve decided to call themselves—they thought it a clever pun on the word “abaisse”, since they’re all determined to change things for the better for those not as privileged as most of them are—decide to make a time capsule.

They’re all gathered in Enjolras’s enormous living room since his parents are out, and they’re all lounging around with an empty black wooden box sitting on the coffee table right in the middle. They have several new additions to their little gang of misfits, and together, Les Amis is now made up of Enjolras and Éponine themselves, Éponine’s siblings Azelma and Gavroche, Combeferre, Cosette, Courfeyrac, Joly, Bossuet, Musichetta, Jehan, and four new additions—Marius Pontmercy, Joseph Bahorel, Raoul Grantaire, and Gustave Feuilly. All of them save Marius prefer to go by their last names, and Éponine’s never questioned it once.

She had a bit of a crush on Marius back when she first met him, but that quickly died when he got with darling Cosette. No hard feelings.

After just sitting there and staring at the box as if it’s going to grow legs and jump out at them, Grantaire speaks up. “So what are we going to do with this?” he asks everyone, raising an eyebrow and looking around. They all seem confused out of their minds as to what to do with the time capsule.

“Make a time capsule,” Éponine deadpans in response from her seat beside Enjolras. Grantaire gives her a look, noticing how she’s much closer to Enjolras than most would deem necessary, going so far as to lay her head on his shoulder, and he smirks knowingly to himself.

“Yeah, but what will we put in it?” Courfeyrac pipes up in frustration, running his fingers through his dark curls. “What are we supposed to _do_ with it when we’re done?”

“We put it in a corner of Enjy’s attic and open it in ten years, which is when we’re twenty-seven,” Cosette replies matter-of-factly from her spot in Marius’s lap. “We can see how much we’ve changed in ten years. We can put whatever means something to us right now and see if that still means something in the future.”

Enjolras shifts slightly in his seat, already knowing what he’s going to put in the time capsule. In fact, it’s in his pocket right now. Not that Éponine would know.

“Okay, so we’ll go figure out what to put in this time capsule and we’ll come back tomorrow,” Combeferre suggests, standing up and taking Courfeyrac’s hand. The other boy complies, following Combeferre out of the living room as the others begin to exit either in pairs or in threes until Éponine and Enjolras are the only ones left in the room.

Éponine turns her head to look at Enjolras, her chin resting quite comfortably on his shoulder. “Aren’t you going to go look for something for the time capsule, Gabe?” she asks him softly, pressing a kiss to his cheek and not noticing how he turns red. Casual displays of affection are practically second nature to them.

“I already have mine,” Enjolras confides, unable to stifle a chuckle at how Éponine’s dark eyes widen.

“What is it?” she questions inquisitively, her eyes lighting up as she gazes into his bright blue eyes.

He laughs again, telling her, “It’s a secret. Everything’s supposed to be kept a secret until we open it ten years from now.”

Éponine pouts, and Enjolras can’t help but think about how cute she looks when she does that thing where she scrunches up her face at him before silently berating himself for thinking that, telling himself that things between them are strictly platonic—always have been for the past thirteen years, always will be for the rest of their lives. “You can’t expect me to wait ten years to find out what you put in that time capsule!” she huffs, giving Enjolras that endearing pout. “No offence, Gabriel, but that’s fucking ridiculous.”

He laughs and kisses her nose without a second thought, telling her, “Patience, love.”

Éponine’s rather surprised at how he calls her love, but she doesn’t question it. She supposes it just comes with the near-lifelong friendship they have. She’s one of the extremely few people with whom he can really let his guard down, and she prides herself on the fact that she’s the first of that incredibly short list.

“Well, I should get going,” Éponine tells him, standing up and kissing his forehead, puzzled by how her heart seems to flutter from the simple action. “Gotta go look for my time capsule object and all that shit.” She ruffles Enjolras’s golden hair, telling him softly, “Good night, nerd.”

Enjolras watches as she leaves the room, leaving him completely alone in the living room, and his hand slowly goes up to his forehead, his fingers brushing against the spot where she kissed him. He takes an envelope out of his pocket, gazing at it as he gets to his feet.

He’ll see how things will have turned out in ten years.

Back at Éponine’s shitty apartment in the slums of Paris, she’s searching in old trunks for anything that could be considered valuable in ten years, at least to her. Azelma and Gavroche are already asleep, having already found their time capsule things, so Éponine tries to stay as quiet as possible in the cramped bedroom the three of them share as she turns a suitcase inside out before coming across something she thought she had lost years ago.

She grins at it, having found her object, and she stows it away in her backpack before climbing onto her own little twin-size bed—Azelma and Gavroche share a bunk bed—and she falls asleep.

The next day, Les Amis find themselves gathered in Enjolras’s living room once again, their items in hand. Éponine hides hers, thinking about how surprised Enjolras would be to find it in the time capsule in ten years, and Courfeyrac announces, “Everyone go out of the room and form a line and then we’ll put our things into the time capsule one by one! Don’t peek at anyone else’s things!”

Éponine, despite how much she feels like strangling Courfeyrac for acting all bossy, begrudgingly obeys and follows Cosette out of the room, her object in the front pocket of the sweater she’s wearing, which happens to be one of the numerous sweaters she’s stolen from Enjolras.

What? He has _really_ comfortable sweaters.

When it’s Éponine’s turn, Enjolras has already put his item into the wooden box, and as she walks into the living room to place her own object into the box, she can’t help but glimpse the crisp white envelope inside. She quickly places her item inside and practically dashes out of the room before her curiosity can get the best of her. She does, however, remember what’s written on the outside of that envelope.

_Dear future me…_


	7. summertime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Les Amis run away to the beach for the summer. Enjolras has a sexual awakening. Éponine realises she has feelings for him. Literally everyone can see that they have the hots for each other but them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> age: eighteen going on nineteen

They’re at the beach for the summer when their friends somehow begin to suspect that there’s something going on between them.

It’s the summer before they all leave for college, and Éponine’s talked Enjolras’s mother into letting them and all of their friends run away for the summer to the Enjolras family’s beach house in the south of France, where Enjolras’s family has an enormous beach house and a private beach. As always, Éponine managed to convince Madame Enjolras, and now she, Enjolras, and the rest of Les Amis are spending most of the summer at Enjolras’s family’s beach house. Now that they’ve officially graduated, they can afford to slack off a little, and what better way to slack off than to run away to the beach for the summer?

Enjolras is assisting Feuilly in his seashell collecting, the both of them wearing nothing but swim trunks, and nearby, Courfeyrac lets out a wolf whistle at the sight of Enjolras, who’s finally completely filled out his formerly gangly figure and has grown to be 6’0. “Who’d a thunk that the little marble boy Enjolras would grow up to be such a handsome fella?” he calls out, cackling and wiggling his eyebrows when Enjolras turns bright red. He ignores Courfeyrac in favour of breathing in the scent of the salty sea air and feeling the gentle waves crash against his calves, bending over numerous times to pick up shells for Feuilly. He wonders where Éponine is—he saw Musichetta and Cosette drag her inside the house earlier, though for what, Enjolras has no idea. He pauses and looks around for a moment—Combeferre and Jehan are playing tic-tac-toe in the sand, Grantaire, Joly, and Bossuet seem to be involved in a heated sandcastle-building competition, Bahorel’s back at the house, leaning against the glass railing of the balcony, and Marius and Courfeyrac are lying on beach blankets, taking in the sun.

“Hey, Enjolras.”

He turns back to look at Feuilly upon hearing his name, raising his eyebrows. “Yes?”

“Are you and Éponine…” Feuilly hesitates, figuring that Enjolras would figure it out on his own. The golden-haired boy flushes red when he realises what Feuilly is implying, and he’s quick to deny it.

“No, no, she and I are just friends,” Enjolras replies a bit too quickly, averting his gaze and bending down to pick up another seashell. Feuilly, however, isn’t quite convinced.

“You two are sharing a room when there are enough rooms for each of us to have our own,” Feuilly points out, taking the bucket full of shells from Enjolras. “And not only that, you two are sharing a bed, too. Do forgive us for thinking you two are in a relationship.” There’s no sarcasm to his statement—it’s genuine and earnest, as if Feuilly really is apologising for assuming such things. Enjolras loves him for that.

“We’ve been doing it since we were kids,” Enjolras explains, feeling his cheeks burn red from the mere thought of Feuilly’s assumptions. “I’ve known her for as long as I can remember. I know her better than I know myself, really. It’s nothing out of the ordinary for us to share a bed.” _Where is she?_

Courfeyrac gets up and walks over to Enjolras, placing his elbow on the taller boy’s shoulder and clicking his tongue. “I bet Cosette and Chetta are giving her a makeover,” he tells Enjolras, wiggling his eyebrows implicatively with that stupid shit-eating grin on his face. “She’ll come out looking like the fucking knockout nobody realises she is. Just try not to, you know, pitch a tent,” he tells Enjolras, lowering his voice as the shit-eating grin on his face grows wider.

Enjolras nearly chokes on thin air at Courfeyrac’s words, and he splutters, “I—what—Courf—pitch a— _what_ —”

“It’s a completely natural part of life, Enjy, my dear!” Courfeyrac assures him, lightly punching his shoulder. “It’s pretty obvious that you’ve got the hots for her, and she's, like, really fucking hot, and your body’s going to go like 'what the fuck' and misbehave and you’ll find yourself having a raging hard-on because of her, and that's perfectly okay.”

As Enjolras splutters some more, Courfeyrac turns his head and yells something that sounds suspiciously like Éponine’s name in a seemingly appreciative manner, and Enjolras falls silent and turns around to look at whatever the fuck Courfeyrac is looking at. It’s all Enjolras could do to keep his jaw from dropping.

Éponine is walking out of the house with Cosette and Musichetta trailing behind her, the latter two looking extremely self-satisfied and smug about their work. Éponine is clad in a nice pair of shades and a burgundy halter-top bikini, most of her midriff exposed, and she’s crossed her arms across her chest, self-conscious. Cosette and Musichetta are smirking and giggling behind her as they look at Enjolras to see his reaction, their giggles morphing into full-fledged laughter at the sight of him looking like he’s desperately trying to fight back a boner. Feuilly’s eyes widen at the look on Enjolras’s face, and the former fights back laughter as the latter tries not to look like he’s blatantly gawking at his best friend. Éponine’s face is an impressive shade of red as she approaches a speechless Enjolras, embarrassed about Cosette and Chetta.

“Sorry about them,” she mutters, taking her shades off to place them on top of her head before crossing her arms across her chest again. “They can be… morons sometimes,” she finishes lamely, looking up at a red-faced Enjolras. “Why are _you_ blushing?” she asks incredulously, her brow furrowing at the look on her best friend’s face.

“I, uh—you—um—you, uh, look good,” he stammers out, blushing fiercely as he tries not to look like he’s obviously fighting back a boner at the sight of her in a fucking _bikini_. “Really, you do. Not—not that you don’t always—uh—not that you don’t always look good,” he clarifies, turning even redder. “You just—you look—different. Good different.”

A fleeting look of surprise crosses Éponine’s face just then, and she turns even redder at his words, feeling butterflies in her stomach for some inexplicable reason. “Oh. Thanks.”

“Jesus Christ, just bone already!” Courfeyrac shouts out, causing the both of them to turn and stare at him.

Éponine drops her arms from her chest to flip him off as she shouts in response, “Fuck off, Courf!”

Enjolras gulps at the sight of her cleavage, which is on full display, and he tries not to think about how much her body’s changed—she’s all curves now, with an hourglass shape and flat abs and that thick, dark hair tumbling down her back, not to mention nice breasts and thighs, and fuck, now he’s doing the complete opposite of what he first intended to do. He forces himself to stop thinking about it, wishing he could stop pining for her after twelve years of repressed feelings. She probably isn’t interested in him in that way anyway, since they’ve grown up together, and he should just get the fuck over it.

Éponine turns back to face Enjolras, biting her lip. “You really think it looks nice?” she asks quietly, gazing up into his blue eyes. As Cosette, Musichetta, Grantaire, and Courfeyrac are fond of reminding her countless times, Enjolras is now ridiculously hot, what with his rock-hard abs and perfectly sculpted arms and shit, and she finally begins to come to terms with just how attractive her childhood best friend has become, rather caught off-guard by just how much she realises. _Is this what ten years of repressed feelings do to you?_ she asks herself, sighing.

“I think you look beautiful, ’Ponine,” Enjolras replies earnestly, taking her hand and squeezing it. Ugh, _feelings_ —back when they were younger, he had always been able to hold her hand without feeling anything particularly strange, but now, it’s difficult to even look at her dressed in such a manner without feeling like he’d pass out.

Nearby, Grantaire, Joly, and Bossuet have paused their sandcastle competition to snicker about how Éponine and Enjolras are merely gazing into each other’s eyes, transfixed. “Ah, young love,” Grantaire chuckles, grabbing the bottle full of wine cooler he’s brought out onto the beach and taking a swig of it.

Teenagers.

Feuilly comes up to Éponine and Enjolras, taking the bucket full of seashells from the latter with a grin on his face. “I think I’ve got enough shells,” Feuilly tells Enjolras, nudging him a bit too implicatively and making the golden-haired boy flush red. “Thanks, Enjolras.” With that, Feuilly walks away and leaves Enjolras standing alone with Éponine, ankle-deep in water.

Éponine clears her throat in an attempt to break the tension between them, laughing nervously. “So what do you want to do now?” she questions, gazing up into his blue eyes.

Enjolras shrugs. “I don’t know. Sit and talk?”

“Sounds good enough to me.” Éponine takes his hand in hers, oblivious to how he froze for a moment as she drags him over to a spot far away from where the others are so they could talk in private. Butterflies are going wild in her stomach, and she feels as if she’s walking on sunshine at the mere feeling of Enjolras’s fingers intertwined with hers, which is _absolutely ridiculous_ since they’ve literally been doing this since he was four and she was three. Hand-holding is certainly nothing new for them, and yet it feels like it is due to her finally coming to terms with her feelings for him, which had slowly, steadily turned from strictly platonic to romantic as the years passed by, and now here they are, eighteen years old, wild and impulsive and carefree, soaking up the exhilarating freedom of youth before they leave for college together and attempting to work out their confusing feelings.

“You still up for moving in together?” Éponine asks, stretching her legs out so the waves tickled her feet. She and Enjolras are going to be attending the same university after he helped her with applications and scholarships, much to his father’s disapproval and his mother’s delight, and she’s to major in psychology while he’s going for journalism despite how much his father wants him to pursue a career as a lawyer. They’ve been best friends for as long as they can remember anyway, so why not move in together?

“Sure, why not?” Enjolras agrees, leaning back on his hands. He crosses his legs, pointedly looking away and trying to will away his scarlet blush at that dreaded feeling in his pants, feeling himself grow hard from the mere _thought_ of her in that goddamn bikini. Not only that, but his mind seems to have decided that it hates him and _extremely_ vivid scenes are flashing through his mind, in which he and his _childhood best friend_ are naked and he’s inside her, on top of her, his lips on her neck, and he’s making her moan loudly as his hand reaches between them to— Enjolras forces himself to stop thinking about such dirty thoughts, making a silent vow to fucking murder Courfeyrac later.

Éponine steals brief sideways glances at him, appreciating his bulging muscles and those goddamn nice abs of his. It’s not fair—he was this tall, gangly thing back in their second-last year, and when he came back after the summer for their final year, he was this gorgeous specimen, tall and all muscles, with a fucking six pack and bulging biceps. He shouldn’t be able to have such an effect on her now. He _can’t_ have such an effect on her—they’ve been best friends since childhood and there’s no reason to believe he returns her feelings in that way.

The two of them sit in silence for some time, feeling the waves splashing against their feet and listening to the distant sound of their friends’ laughter. Éponine has a funny feeling that Enjolras is keeping secrets from her, but she doesn’t ask about it, knowing that he’d admit to it in his own time. She trusts him—the trust between them came easily, it was practically second nature. The fact that they’ve been best friends for fourteen years definitely contributes to that as well.

After quite some time in which they just sit there at the shore, feeling the water go up to their knees as the tide rises and falls, Éponine turns to Enjolras and whispers, “Do you want to go back inside?”

He nods, getting up and reaching out so she could take his hand. She rolls her eyes in amusement as she takes his hand in hers and allows him to pull her up to her feet, murmuring teasingly, “Such a gentleman.”

The others stare at them as they disappear into the enormous house, probably with much more interest than is necessary. Musichetta and Cosette exchange knowing looks, near-identical smirks on their faces as the door closes behind Éponine and Enjolras.

“They’re totally into each other,” Musichetta remarks, crossing her arms across her chest.

“They have been for years,” Cosette replies, shaking her head. “They’re oblivious.”

Back in the house, Éponine puts on one of Enjolras’s T-shirts over her bikini once they’re back in the room they’re sharing. They’ve claimed the largest room with a king-size four-poster bed—Enjolras tells her it’s usually where his parents sleep whenever they’re on vacation at the beach. There are floor-to-ceiling windows with an absolutely fantastic view of the ocean and sliding glass doors that lead to the balcony where the pool is, and the bed itself is enormous, with deep red silk sheets and massive, fluffy pillows. The two of them sit on the bed, Enjolras with his legs dangling over the edge and Éponine with her legs crossed.

“Well, what do we do now?” Éponine asks, leaning back against the headboard and gazing at Enjolras expectantly.

“Have I ever told you I can play guitar?” Enjolras replies, getting up to retrieve the acoustic guitar in a corner. Éponine’s eyes widen and she shakes her head.

“No! Gabriel, what other secrets have you been keeping from me?” she teases, not noticing how he goes stiff for a moment when he sits back down with the guitar. “Let me guess—you can sing, too?”

He merely smiles coyly at her as he begins to tune the guitar, his guitar pick in hand, eventually beginning to strum and piece together a tune as Éponine tilts her head just slightly, smiling at how into it Enjolras seems to be. He eventually starts to sing softly, surprising Éponine with how nice he sounds when singing.

“Look at the stars,” he croons, gazing into her eyes and giving her a little smile as she laughs. “Look how they shine for you and everything you do… Yeah, they were all yellow…”

Éponine finds herself blushing as Enjolras croons about brightness and hope and devotion, wishing he actually means it when he sings of love. “Your skin… Oh, yeah, your skin and bones turn into something beautiful… Do you know, you know I love you so? You know I love you so…”

 _Yeah. Fuck subtlety,_ Enjolras thinks, meaning each word he sings and wondering if Éponine would get the hint. A pretty pink blush is dusting her cheeks as he softly serenades her, strumming the guitar. How fitting that the lyrics are about unrequited love.

“Your skin… Oh, yeah, your skin and bones turn into something beautiful… And you know, for you, I’d bleed myself dry,” he croons, grinning at how she blushes before him, her hands folded in her lap as she tilts her head in wonder. “For you, I’d bleed myself dry…”

Enjolras puts so much emotion into the song, Éponine wonders if he really relates to the lyrics and means what he’s singing. She can feel her cheeks grow hot at the way he gazes at her as he sings to her, and she quickly brushes off that thought. She may have fallen for him, but there’s no reason to think he might have fallen for her too. Even so, she feels herself blushing at the way he sings to her and the way he’s gazing at her as he does so, his normally stern blue eyes alight with happiness. She’s one of the few people with whom he can really let his guard down, and she was the first, too, and she prides herself on that. This is a private moment between the both of them, meant to be cherished and spoken of in secret, and Éponine knows she’s going to hold onto this moment.

Enjolras soon comes to the end of the song, crooning softly, “Look at the stars… Look how they shine for you and all the things you do…” He stops strumming and gazes into Éponine’s eyes, raising an eyebrow. “So? How was it?” he asks, trying to hide the anxiousness in his voice as he awaits her approval. Éponine grins widely.

“I loved it,” she tells him sincerely, reaching out to take his hand and making his heart skip a beat. He tries not to let his joy show as she laces her fingers through his and rubs circles into his palm, gazing into his eyes and observing how they sparkle. “Can you sing something else?”

Enjolras laughs and pulls his hand away, taking up the guitar again. “Anything for you.”


	8. close calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Éponine gets a girlfriend. Enjolras goes on a blind date. He nearly walks in on something he certainly never wants to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there are a couple of original characters in this one!! i based noelle's appearance off of ali ewoldt's, and vincent,,,, well, just picture ki hong lee. enjolras is nineteen, éponine is eighteen.

They’re barely a month into college and Éponine’s already met a girl.

Her name is Noelle and she’s beautiful, from what Enjolras sees when Éponine first brings her home. Wavy brown hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. Éponine tells him that she’s Filipina-American, having gotten a scholarship to study in France, and that she’s pansexual (“Just like you!” Éponine laughs) and that they met at a bar. Noelle is surprised when she finds that Éponine resides with this handsome golden-haired journalism student, but she says nothing of it, since she herself lives with two girls and three boys in a spacious apartment off-campus. Enjolras likes Noelle much more than he liked Montparnasse, since she’s actually a genuinely nice, kind girl with a killer sense of humour, but even still, he couldn’t help but feel jealous.

He needs to get over his stupid crush on Éponine. It’s obvious she doesn’t feel the same way.

He’s only glad he hasn’t walked in on Éponine and Noelle doing… stuff. Yet.

One day, Éponine comes home from a date with Noelle and announces, “You know what? You need to get out there and go on a few dates. Go live a little! Make some friends! Have some one-night stands!”

Enjolras is sitting on the couch in their living room, engrossed in Tolstoy, and he looks up to wrinkle his nose at Éponine’s words. He doesn’t quite like the idea of having one-night stands. He really doesn’t experience sexual attraction until he develops an emotional bond with someone, and he feels like he’s one of those people who wouldn’t be able to handle a one-night stand. Call him a prude, but the idea of casual sex is icky to him, as he wants his first time to be with someone who means something to him.

Nothing wrong with being a dude and a virgin at nineteen years old. Society’s just a dick to people like him.

Enjolras shakes his head, declining Éponine’s offer. He knows she means well, but he just can’t. “I love you, firecracker, but really, I’m fine. No one-night stands for me.”

“Well, at least go on a date,” Éponine tries to bargain, pulling the book out of his hands and pulling him to his feet. He can’t help but acknowledge how his heart flutters from the mere touch of her hand, and he silently berates himself for still melting whenever she so much as looks at him. _Stop being such a sap!_ he scolds himself furiously. _You’re supposed to be made of marble, remember? It’s not like you to be such a sap!_ He gives Éponine a rather forced smile as she tells him, “R has this cool classmate from one of his art courses and he thinks that the both of you would really hit it off. Apparently this guy’s really chill and he loves to sit in the corners of cafés, acting all broody just like you do.”

Enjolras makes a little noise of outrage, affronted. “I am not _broody_!” he contradicts. Éponine merely smirks and bursts out laughing, nearly doubling over in laughter.

“God, Gabriel, I was just messing with you!” she laughs, clutching her stomach and roaring with laughter at the look on his face. “You’re not broody, but you do love to sit in corners of cafés.”

“I think you’re mistaking me for yourself,” Enjolras retorts, trying to keep a straight face. Éponine smacks him in the arm.

“Shut the fuck up,” she bites back, grinning at him as she saunters off to grab her phone off the coffee table. “I’m going to tell R to set this classmate of his up with you for this Friday! You need to get out and live a bit!”

“’Ponine—!” Before Enjolras can continue, Éponine walks back into her room and shuts the door behind her, holding the phone up to her ear. He sighs and sits back down with his book.

_Well, it seems like I’m going on a date._

That Friday, Enjolras meets Vincent at a bar near Gavroche’s school, and he seems nice enough. He learns that Vincent is a second-generation immigrant from South Korea, and it had taken a lot of convincing for his parents to allow him to go to art school. Enjolras thinks Vincent is a nice enough guy—messy black hair, dark eyes, somewhat pale skin, and rather buff, too. He also seems to have a great sense of humour and he tells Enjolras of how surprised he was at how chill his parents were when he came out as gay to them. It’s a nice story, but Enjolras finds himself preoccupied with thoughts of what Éponine’s currently up to. It’s in no way Vincent’s fault—he really is a nice guy, and Enjolras is sure that any guy would be lucky to have him, but at this point, the golden-haired boy is just too smitten with Éponine to even think about dating other people. He knows he should really get over it since she obviously doesn’t feel the same way due to having a girlfriend, but no matter how hard he tries, he just can’t.

At the end of the night, Enjolras bids Vincent goodbye, and there seems to be an unspoken agreement between the two of them to never see each other again. It isn’t that they dislike each other—on the contrary, it was a great date, and the kiss on the cheek that Vincent gives him when they bid each other goodbye on the doorstep of Enjolras’s apartment building gives the golden-haired boy a warm and fuzzy feeling on the inside. However, it had just been a date—they never made arrangements for anything more than that, and so the both of them go their separate ways.

When Enjolras gets back to his floor, the first thing he sees is the pair of panties hanging from the doorknob, and his blood runs cold.

He leans in and presses his ear against the door, and sure enough, he hears a whole variety of moans and giggles and squeals and shouts of names. He hears Noelle giggling Éponine’s name, followed by a string of breathless moans and vile curse words, and then that familiar husky laugh, that laugh he dreams so often about, and then he hears a sweet voice saying seductively, “You ready for round two, princess?” He backs away from the door, feeling his heart plummet with every passing moment, and eventually he just can’t take it anymore, running out of the building. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he has to get away from there until further notice.

Eventually he runs all the way to Combeferre’s dorm suite that he shares with Courfeyrac, not even caring when it begins to rain when he’s halfway there, and by the time he turns up at Combeferre’s doorstep, he’s soaked to the skin and shivering. It’s one in the morning, and the look of complete shock on Combeferre’s face doesn’t even begin to describe how Enjolras is feeling inside.

“Can I stay here tonight?” he requests through chattering teeth, shaking from the cold. Combeferre seems alarmed and nods immediately, pulling the other boy inside and shutting the door behind him.

“Enjolras, what the hell happened?” Combeferre asks in concern, taking Enjolras’s coat to toss into the dryer as the golden-haired boy walks into the living room with a blank look on his face.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Enjolras snaps in reply, wishing for nothing but to get the mental image of Éponine and Noelle doing the deed out of his mind. Hearing them was bad enough already.

Combeferre seems taken aback at his friend’s sudden hostility, but he doesn’t question it, telling him instead, “Courfeyrac is out. You can take his bed if you want to.”

“He’ll show up sooner or later with some girl or guy or whoever the fuck it is he’s sleeping with this week,” Enjolras points out dully, bringing his knees to his chest.

Combeferre raises an eyebrow but says nothing, simply taking a seat beside Enjolras on the couch in the tiny living room. In an attempt to break the silence, the other boy asks, “So how was your date?”

Enjolras sighs and curls into himself even more, his chin between his kneecaps. “It was okay,” he murmurs in response. “Vincent’s a great guy, he really is, but we didn’t really click.” He just can’t go out with anyone. His heart ran away from him twelve years ago and decided that it belongs to Éponine.

Combeferre frowns and examines Enjolras, wondering what’s wrong with him. “Is this about Ep’s girlfriend?” the other boy asks at last, having been one of the first people to realise that Enjolras is in love with Éponine back when they were twelve.

Enjolras scowls and turns away. “I like Noelle, she really is a nice person,” he replies quietly. “But…” He stops, shuddering at the thought that he had nearly walked in on Éponine and Noelle. “Shit happened. That’s why I came here.”

“Ah.” Combeferre immediately picks up on the fact that Enjolras probably saw or heard some things he wasn’t supposed to see or hear, and in a panic, he had fled. “Well, feel free to stay here for the rest of the night,” Combeferre tells Enjolras, patting his damp golden curls. “You should go shower. You’re going to catch a cold.”

“I’ll shower later,” Enjolras mumbles.

“No, you’re going to shower now,” Combeferre replies firmly, standing up and grabbing Enjolras’s hands to pull him to his feet. “Hurry up. I’ll have some clothes you can borrow when you’re out of the shower.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Enjolras mutters, allowing Combeferre to shove him in the direction of the shower and peeling his wet clothes off once Combeferre shuts the bathroom door. He gets into the shower and turns it on, standing under the scalding hot water as he feels the tears begin to fall.


	9. heartbreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Éponine goes through another breakup and Enjolras attempts to cheer her up with music.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> age: twenty

Two years later, Éponine and Noelle break up.

At least they wait until after Éponine’s twentieth birthday.

“Gabriel, really, I’m fine,” Éponine tells Enjolras, a hint of exasperation lingering in her tone. It’s late at night, and the two of them are in their little living room as Éponine eats her way through her third tub of ice cream as they watch _Dirty Dancing_. “We just weren’t right for each other. Really, it’s all fine. I’m over it. She and I are still friends.”

“I’m just worried about you,” Enjolras replies quietly, pulling her closer as she mouths along to that iconic “nobody puts Baby in a corner” line. “You were pretty upset when you broke up with Montparnasse.”

“Yeah, but that was when I was _sixteen_ ,” Éponine reminds him, bringing her hand up to ruffle his curls, oblivious to how he turns the faintest shade of pink. “I’m twenty now. I’m a grown-ass woman! I can handle this! Besides, nothing _happened_ —we just weren’t right for each other.”

“Still,” Enjolras murmurs, burying his face in her hair and kissing her head, making her flush. “I’m worried about you, firecracker.”

“No need to be,” Éponine reassures him, her lips curving into a little smile at the old nickname. “I’m fine.”

The truth is, the real reason Éponine and Noelle decided to break up is because Noelle thought that Éponine has some sort of repressed feelings towards Enjolras and is using her as a way to get over it. Éponine blew up completely when Noelle first accused her of using her, but she soon realised that Noelle was right, in a way. Éponine still remembers the time she first realised how Enjolras’s touch makes her heart flutter, back at the beach at the end of their high school days. He made her blush with a soft serenade, crooning softly to her as he strummed on his guitar in the quiet of the room they shared at his family’s beach house. And she and Noelle hadn’t been as happy together as they were at the beginning of their relationship—all the butterflies died, and they decided that it was time to part ways. Besides, Noelle deserves so much better than a girlfriend whose heart really belongs to another.

Enjolras suspects that Éponine seems to be keeping secrets from him, and although he doesn’t necessarily mind it, he wonders why she would feel the need to keep things from him in the first place. They’ve known each other for nearly their whole lives, and they’ve told each other everything. Well, almost everything.

He still doesn’t know how to tell her he’s in love with her.

“Anything you want to talk about?” Enjolras asks, managing to keep his tone light as they near the end of the movie and Éponine begins to search their TV for another movie to watch on demand, settling on _Singin’ in the Rain_.

Éponine turns her head to look up at him and gives him a look. “I’m fine, Gabe,” she lies through her teeth.

 _I’m in love with you, you oblivious fuckface!_ she feels like screaming. _Jesus Christ, I’ve been in love with you for twelve years now! Can’t you take a fucking hint?_

Éponine does notice how Enjolras has been becoming rather distant in the past couple of years, seeming to hide things from her. It frustrates her to no end, especially since they’re best friends and she’s gotten used to telling him everything and vice versa. She thinks that he’s begun to pick up on the fact that her feelings towards him aren’t entirely platonic anymore, and he’s trying to let her down gently, and she brushes that off, telling herself to shut up. She’s just gotten out of a relationship—he wouldn’t have had time to pick up on the fact that she’s grossly, disgustingly, head-over-heels in love with him. Yet.

Enjolras gets up, telling her softly, “Wait here.” When Éponine raises an eyebrow, he just chuckles and says, “Just wait!” before going back to his room, presumably to get something. Éponine stares wistfully after him, wishing she could just stop being such a big baby and tell him of her feelings. Not that he’d ever return them.

Her eyebrows are raised even higher when Enjolras returns with his guitar, settling down beside her and giving her a soft, tender smile. “I just thought you might want some cheering up,” he tells her softly, tuning the guitar. “I can always play the piano instead if you want me to.”

The two of them moved into a slightly bigger apartment back at the beginning of their third year of college, and Enjolras insisted on buying a piano to place in the living room so he could play on it whenever just like he does with his violin and guitar. As a result, they now have a nice, sleek black upright piano in the corner of their already small living room, and Enjolras likes to play on it whenever he feels like relieving himself of stress. The music helps him think.

“Just do whatever,” Éponine tells him, feeling the corners of her lips turning up in a smile. Enjolras leans in and presses a kiss to her forehead, making her heart stop momentarily, before he places the guitar on an armchair and walks over to the piano. Éponine scoots over to the edge of the sofa to gaze at him as he begins to finger the keys, piecing together a gorgeous melody as he starts to sing to her.

“When the rain is blowing in your face and the whole world is on your case,” he croons softly, unable to see her face behind him, “I could offer you a warm embrace to make you feel my love… When the evening shadows and the stars appear and there is no one there to dry your tears, I could hold you for a million years to make you feel my love…”

Subtlety is overrated anyway, right?

Éponine feels her cheeks grow hot as she gazes at Enjolras singing to her, his long fingers nimble over the keys as he sings a tender, heartfelt song of love, and she wonders if he’s trying to tell her something. She curses herself for thinking so, telling herself that it’s just her lovesick mind playing tricks on her. Her own feelings are getting in the way.

“I know you haven’t made your mind up yet, but I would never do you wrong,” Enjolras sings, and Éponine can practically hear the smile in his voice. “I’ve known it from the moment that we met; there’s no doubt in my mind where you belong…” _Am I being too obvious?_ he wonders to himself. Then again, he’s dropped massive hints over the years, and to this day, she still hasn’t noticed, so he figures he’s fine.

Éponine smiles, just soaking in the feeling of that night—sitting in their own little living room, Enjolras singing to her, and getting over her rather anticlimactic breakup by being with her best friend and a trusty tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Finals week has just ended too, so they’re simply rewinding by being together in their little shared apartment.

“I could make you happy, make your dreams come true,” Enjolras croons as he nears the end of the song, the gentle, comforting sound of the piano acting as an accompaniment. “Nothing that I wouldn’t do… Go to the ends of the earth for you to make you feel my love…” When he plays the final notes, he turns around to smile at Éponine. “How was it?”

“Thanks, Gabriel,” she murmurs, smiling at him with such love, such tenderness in her eyes, Enjolras is pretty sure he turns beet red. “It helped.”

He gets up to take a few steps back to her, kissing her forehead. “I better get some sleep. Good night, ’Ponine,” he says quietly.

“Good night, Gabriel,” she calls as he begins to walk back to his room. “I love you.”

Enjolras stops in his tracks. She’s never said ‘I love you’ in such an adoring tone before. He tells himself to stop being so ridiculous—it’s probably just his mind playing tricks on him like they always do, the result of fourteen years of repressed feelings. They’ve been saying I love you to each other for as long as he can remember; there’s no reason for him to get his hopes up. He responds softly, “I love you, too.”

Éponine’s rather taken aback at the soft, tender way he says it, daring to hope for about a second until he disappears into his room. She assumes it’s just her projecting her feelings for him onto him, and she says nothing of it as she stands up and goes back to her own room.


	10. road trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They're young and wild and they've just graduated from college, so why not go on a road trip through the United States?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> age: about twenty-one/twenty-two

When they graduate college, Enjolras decides to take advantage of the money his mother gives him and decides to take Éponine to the States for a road trip.

It’s nighttime and the two of them are sitting on the roof of his mansion once again, simply taking time to relax after the graduation party Enjolras’s mother threw for the both of them. The sun is just setting due to it being early summer, and they gaze out at the city as the sky turns all different shades of pink, orange, and lilac. The Eiffel Tower rises majestically in the distance over the city, the glittering lights reaching them from miles away. Éponine’s head is on Enjolras’s shoulder as they watch the sunset over the rooftops.

“So what are you going to do now?” Enjolras asks her, taking her hand in his and squeezing it. A blush rises to her cheeks at the feeling of his hand in hers, and she scolds herself for being such a sappy, lovesick idiot. _He doesn’t feel the same way!_ Éponine furiously berates herself. _We’ve been doing this for nearly our whole lives!_

She sighs and swings her legs over the edge, replying, “Find a full-time job, I guess? Maybe apply for grad school? I don’t know, I guess I haven’t really made any plans for anything right after graduation.”

“That’s good,” Enjolras murmurs. Éponine furrows her brow and looks up at him.

“Why is that a good thing?” she asks him, narrowing her eyes and feigning suspicion, attempting to stifle a smile when he smirks at her.

“Because I was just going to invite you to come to America with me,” he replies, taking two plane tickets out of his pocket and trying to keep himself from grinning when Éponine’s eyes widen. She goes speechless for several moments before letting out a shriek of delight.

“Gabriel!” She throws her arms around him and tackles him in a hug, laughing when the both of them fall back onto the roof. She pulls back up and finds herself on top of him, gazing into his twinkling blue eyes as her hair falls into his face. The both of them feel like they’ve stopped breathing as they gaze into each other’s eyes, just staring at each other, before Enjolras clears his throat and motions for Éponine to sit back up. The two of them sit up on that roof once more, their faces flushed red.

“So I take it you’ll come with me?” Enjolras asks at last to break the silence between them. Éponine nods eagerly.

“Yeah, of course!” she replies, her entire face lighting up. Enjolras finds his mind wandering to thoughts of how beautiful she looks when her entire face lights up like that before he tells himself to shut the fuck up. “What are we going to do there? Where are we going first? What places are we going to see?”

“Slow down, firecracker,” he chides, chuckling and brushing some of her hair out of her face. “We’re going to be going on a road trip, and we’ll be going to New York first, just in time for the NYC Pride March. I haven’t thought about much after that—do you want to rent a pickup truck and we’ll just go from there? Like those choose-your-own-adventure things we used to read when we were kids?”

“That sounds like a great idea,” Éponine responds, grinning up at him and giggling. Holy fuck, they’re going to America. “We can see Broadway shows!”

“Whatever you want,” Enjolras tells her, smiling at how happy she seems to be. Seeing her this delighted made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. “We take off in a week.”

“Plenty of time to pack up then,” Éponine says happily, bringing her knees to her chest before jumping up. Enjolras feels himself smile and follows her lead, standing up beside her on the roof.

Éponine puts her arms around his waist and pulls him close, gazing up into his shining blue eyes and scrunching up her nose at him, a grin on her face. Enjolras smiles down at her; she barely reaches his chin, and he finds it adorable. “We’re going to have an adventure,” she declares, grinning up at him.

He leans in and presses a kiss to her forehead, ignoring how wildly his heart is pounding in his chest, and replies, “Yes, we will.”

A week later, the two of them find themselves at the airport with Les Amis and Enjolras’s mother there to bid them goodbye, and they’re armed with nothing but two small, near-empty suitcases and Enjolras’s guitar. He swears the guitar is just to entertain the both of them whenever they make stops all across the States, but Éponine finds herself kind of doubting that statement. Even so, she doesn’t question it, and she’s practically bouncing with excitement by the time they board the plane. She claims the window seat, and about three hours into the flight, she begins to get airsick.

“I feel like I’m going to throw up,” she whines, sticking her face in a barf bag and dry heaving. “Why the fuck won’t I throw up?”

“Probably because you haven’t eaten yet,” Enjolras replies drily, earning himself a light smack on the arm. He smiles to himself.

New York City is a sight to behold—the dazzling lights of Times Square at night, the endless green of Central Park, the beauty that is the Brooklyn Bridge, Lady Liberty looming in the distance, and of course that stunning Manhattan skyline. Éponine and Enjolras are all swept up in the hustle and bustle of Manhattan in the summertime, blending in among the countless tourists in Times Square. As they stand in the middle of it all, looking around at all the billboards and Broadway marquees, Éponine turns to Enjolras to grin up at him. “This is amazing, Gabe,” she tells him sincerely, taking his hand in hers and squeezing it.

“This is just the beginning,” he responds, smiling rather secretively. Éponine cocks her head and wonders what on earth he could be talking about, a suspecting little smile gracing her lips.

That night, they check into a hotel near Central Park, and the clerk at the front desk peers at them both over their glasses. Enjolras has his arm around Éponine and the two of them are practically pressed against each other, and the two of them are completely oblivious to the fact that they look just like a couple to anyone with half a brain.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Enjolras and… Mrs. Enjolras?” the clerk asks, looking to the both of them for confirmation. They both turn a fiery red, completely flustered and taken aback by the fact that the clerk assumes they’re together, _married_ even.

“Miss Thénardier,” Éponine corrects gently, feeling her cheeks burn as she smiles at the receptionist. “We’re not married. Actually, we’re not even together. Just friends.”

The clerk raises an eyebrow as if to say, “Sure, honey,” but says nothing else, humming quietly as Enjolras checks him and Éponine into the hotel. It turns out Enjolras has booked them a room with a single king-size bed, Éponine finds out as they go up to their room, dragging their little suitcases along and Enjolras carrying his guitar, and once the door behind them is shut, she laughs and turns to him sitting on the bed, babbling unthinkingly, “Can you believe that clerk thought we were a couple? I mean, how crazy is that, right? Like, we’re best friends, it’s perfectly normal, why did they assume we were a couple, like, that’s insane, isn’t it—” Éponine realises she’s rambling and quickly shuts up, wishing she hadn’t said what she said. Then again, what does it matter? It’s not like she’s ever going to have a chance with him, anyway.

“Yeah,” Enjolras replies quietly, feeling his heart sinking. If she’s talking like that about how that receptionist assumed they’re a couple, there must be no way she returns his feelings. He curses himself for being such a fool, but the heart wants what it wants, and his heart just happened to decide almost sixteen years ago that it wants nobody but Éponine. “Pretty crazy.”

Éponine senses that something’s wrong and goes over to sit down beside Enjolras. “Everything okay, Gabe?” she asks in concern, rubbing his back. “Did I say something?”

Enjolras musters a smile, shaking his head. “It’s nothing,” he lies. “I’m fine, ’Ponine.”

Éponine raises an eyebrow at the obvious insincerity in his tone but doesn’t comment on it, knowing he’ll admit if something’s wrong in his own time. She completely trusts him, and there’s no reason to suspect he’s doing anything suspicious.

Clicking her tongue, she stands up to drag her suitcase over, announcing, “Well, I think we should get some sleep! We’ve got to recharge for tomorrow! The Pride March is in two days, we’ll have to be fully rested for that!” She walks over to her suitcase, her hips swaying, and bends over to take out some of the few clothes she brought along for the trip. Enjolras watches as she disappears into the bathroom, and once the bathroom door is shut, he sighs and falls back onto the bed.

Two days later, Éponine and Enjolras find themselves all caught up in the rainbow colours of the Pride March, and it’s an absolutely exhilarating experience to see so many people just like them gather to march, proud of who they are, and it turns out Éponine ordered a giant bi flag off of Amazon shortly before she and Enjolras left for the States, and she’s marching beside Enjolras with the biggest smile on her face, wearing ripped jean shorts and a black tank top with the words “bisexual Amazon goddess” written on it in the colours of the bi flag and draped in an enormous, vibrant bisexual flag as the two of them march in the biggest Pride celebration in the world. Not only that, but it turns out she also bought a giant demisexual flag for Enjolras, and she insists on him wearing it like a cape as the two of them blend into the crowd of thousands, laughing and having the absolute time of their lives.

Enjolras doesn’t quite mind being made to wear his pride flag like a cape, and all he can think about is how gleeful and elated Éponine seems to be, draped in a huge bisexual flag and also having the flag painted on her cheeks. Enjolras himself has the pansexual flag painted on his cheeks—just moments prior to the beginning of the march, Éponine insisted on painting the pan flag onto his cheeks since he already has a giant demisexual flag as a cape anyway, and since he could never say no to her, he allowed her to do so. Surprisingly enough, it’s a flattering look, and Éponine holds her phone up for a selfie of the both of them to send to their friends and Enjolras’s mother back in Paris.

“God, Gabriel, this is so great,” Éponine laughs as they take silicone rainbow wristbands from a near-naked man wearing nothing but black boxer shorts and a rainbow flag. “We _need_ to take everyone else here one day.”

“Yes, we do,” Enjolras agrees, chuckling as they continue to get lost in the crowds, waving their little rainbow flags above their heads. He can’t help but think about how radiant she looks, with her thick, dark hair flying in the wind as they flaunt their lack of heterosexuality in that massive pride parade, and he finds himself gazing tenderly at her as she looks forward, yelling and whooping and waving her flag in that merciless heat.

God, he is so fucked.

The two of them return that evening to their hotel with tons of free merch they had gotten at the march and a vow to go on a Broadway show extravaganza, making plans to see at least a dozen different shows over the course of two weeks, and then it all goes from there.

The next few months are a blur—once they decide that their time in New York is up, Enjolras rents a rather old pickup truck and they’re off on a road trip through the States, occasionally venturing into Canada as well. With each place they visit, they fill themselves up with experiences they never dreamed of before—standing beside each other at the edge of the Maid of the Mist as they’re sprayed by the water of Niagara Falls, sitting at the edge of a cliff with their legs dangling over the side as they watch the sunset over the Grand Canyon, requesting for fellow tourists to take pictures of them in front of Cinderella Castle at Disney World, standing at the top of a mountain and hollering out to the world as the wind races past their faces, and God knows what else. Éponine’s particularly fond of standing through the sunroof whenever they race down those long highways in the desert, whooping as music from her and Enjolras’s road trip playlist plays in the background. Yes, she gets dust in her face, but fuck all that—she adores living in the moment, and a little dust in her face sure isn’t going to stop her.

The two of them are parked under a tree in a sprawling empty field somewhere in the Midwest, and they’re lying in the grass, Éponine’s head on Enjolras’s stomach as they lie perpendicular to each other. It’s late at night and the stars stretch out endlessly above them; Enjolras is pointing out constellations as Éponine hums softly to herself and listens to him. The conversation soon takes a turn to deep philosophical shit, and Éponine finds herself asking Enjolras a number of questions that require quite a lot of thinking about.

“If you died today, what regrets would you have about your life?” Éponine questions, turning her head to gaze up at him. His stomach was quite firm, and she can feel his abs through his shirt as she uses his stomach as a pillow.

Enjolras gazes up at the stars, considering his answer. _I would regret never having told you about my feelings,_ he catches himself thinking before he silently berates himself. “I would regret not having done enough to help out the people,” he replies instead. “I’d do anything to liberate the whole world from injustice.”

“That’s a ridiculous thing to wish for,” Éponine snorts, unable to help herself. Enjolras seems to have his head in the clouds sometimes, with his big plans for the future. “I’m sorry, Gabriel, but the world will never be completely free of injustice despite how badly you want it to be—believe me, I do too—and even if it could be one day, you definitely wouldn’t be able to pull that off on your own.” Éponine sighs and places her hands on top of her stomach, gazing up at the star-studded sky. “I think the best we can do is do our best in what we _are_ actually capable of doing, by volunteering and educating and all that shit. We can’t fix the world, but we _can_ help make it a better place.”

“Well said,” Enjolras murmurs quietly, rather awed by her response. The two of them go silent for a moment before Éponine asks another question.

“Gabe, would you ever sacrifice your life for someone?” she asks. “Would your willingness to sacrifice your life for someone be affected by the fact that they're a friend or family?”

Enjolras laughs rather drily, saying, “The only person I genuinely love in my family is my mother, so I’d probably only sacrifice myself for her. For my friends, I definitely will. All of you mean so much to me.” _You most of all,_ he thinks, sighing rather half-heartedly to himself. All these years of pining and she’s still completely clueless. “I can’t imagine just standing by and watching any of you die. Now, if it were a stranger, then the situation depends, but that’s hard to explain. I know _you’d_ give your life for your friends and siblings in a heartbeat, though,” he adds softly as an afterthought, his large hand absent-mindedly drifting down to stroke the hair near Éponine’s forehead.

“How did you know?” she asks, rather amazed. He’s not wrong—she’d sacrifice herself for her friends and, no matter how insufferable they could be most of the time, her siblings too in a heartbeat, probably Enjolras most of all. _My Gabriel,_ she thinks to herself. _My nerd._

Enjolras chuckles lightly and continues to absent-mindedly stroke her hair, unaware of the fact that he’s making her blush. “I know you better than I know myself, firecracker.”

Éponine smiles to herself at his words, her heart going tippity tap tap tap in her chest as she scolds herself for being such a lovesick mess. They’re best friends and they have been for nearly their whole lives, and that’s more than she could ever ask for, so these thoughts of the possibility of the addition of romance to their friendship need to fucking go.

They lie there in the soft grass in silence for a few more minutes, stargazing and just enjoying each other’s presence as they always do, until Éponine sits up and gets to her feet. She holds her hand out for Enjolras to take, yawning and telling him, “It’s getting late, Gabriel. Maybe we can sleep in the truck bed for tonight? We’re in the middle of nowhere—I suppose we could stay out here just for one night before finding a motel tomorrow night.”

“Sure, why not?” Enjolras takes Éponine’s hand and allows her to pull him to his feet, and the two of them walk back to their rented pickup truck and settle into the bed of the truck, in which they’ve put an air mattress, half a dozen colourful blankets, and fluffy pillows. Enjolras’s guitar sits in a corner near a pillow, and once the two of them have crawled onto the bed of the truck, Enjolras crosses his legs as Éponine does the same and grabs his guitar, beginning to tune it as he places a capo near the top of the neck. Éponine tilts her head and furrows her brow, gazing at him with a curious hint of a smile on her face. Enjolras smiles back at her and tells her quietly, “I’m just going to sing to you, ’Ponine.”

Éponine feels her cheeks flush pink at the mere thought of being serenaded again by her Gabriel, and she listens as he begins to play a neat melody. Enjolras smiles to himself, thinking about how difficult it had been to learn how to play the entire song in this certain way, and soon enough, he begins to sing.

“She can kill with a smile,” he begins. “She can wound with her eyes. She can ruin your faith with her casual lies, and she only reveals what she wants you to see… Yeah, she hides like a child, but she’s always a woman to me…”

Éponine finds herself smiling and blushing at what he’s singing, and she can’t help but think he means it about her. Most of the lyrics certainly seem to apply to herself, and the way he’s looking at her as he sings… She brushes it off as her mind playing tricks on her once again, taking advantage of her lovesickness.

“She can lead you to love, she can take you or leave you,” he continues to croon softly, his eyes flicking between the guitar strings and Éponine herself as a little smile lit up his face. _Stupid gorgeous face,_ Éponine thinks to herself. “She can ask for the truth, but she’ll never believe you, and she’ll take what you give her as long as it’s free… Yeah, she steals like a thief, but she’s always a woman to me…”

Éponine wraps one of the bigger blankets around herself and gazes at Enjolras with wonder in her eyes, her head slightly tilted. He has such a melodic, sweet-sounding voice—she wonders why nobody else knows about this. Then again, she enjoys being the only one who does know—it feels like a secret meant to be shared just between the two of them.

She loves him so much, it’s almost unbearable.

“Oh, she takes care of herself; she can wait if she wants; she’s ahead of her time… Oh, and she never gives out and she never gives in; she just changes her mind…”

 _It really is a difficult song to play on the guitar,_ Enjolras thinks as he continues to play, fucking up one chord before he quickly backtracks and corrects himself. The look in Éponine’s eyes as he sings to her has him hoping, hoping that maybe, just maybe there’s a possibility she returns his feelings. He lets himself hope as she lies down, her hair fanned out against the pillows as she gazes up at him playing the guitar and singing to her. Once he comes to the end of his song, he moves the capo further down the neck of the guitar and begins to play a soft guitar solo of “Here Comes the Sun” as Éponine feels herself beginning to grow drowsy.

He gazes at her tenderly as she falls asleep to the sweet sound of his guitar playing, saying quietly as he nears the end of the song, “I love you, firecracker.” He places the guitar to the side of the truck bed and settles in beside her, crawling underneath the blanket with her and falling asleep to the sound of her soft, steady breathing.

The first hints of sunrise are just beginning to show when Éponine wakes up the next morning to the sound of birds chirping, finding herself wrapped in Enjolras’s arms. Her breath catches in her throat at the feeling of his muscular arms wrapped around her—they must have gravitated towards each other somehow in their sleep and ended up cuddling. Her face is inches from his, and she can’t help but think about how peaceful and carefree and how much _younger_ Enjolras looks when he’s sleeping, his golden hair falling into his face and his long lashes fluttering just slightly. She feels like reaching up to caress his cheek just as his eyes open.

He turns pink at how physically close they are right now, murmuring sleepily, “Good morning, ’Ponine.”

There’s just something about those bleary blue eyes and mussed-up golden curls, and Éponine can barely resist leaning in to close the gap between them. The corners of her mouth turn up in a tiny smile as she whispers back, “Good morning, Gabriel.”

Oh, what she wouldn’t give to just kiss him right now.

Enjolras, unbeknownst to Éponine, is thinking something along the same lines as her, wondering what her lips would feel like against his. He still remembers the ridiculous circumstances under which he had his first kiss—everyone else forced him into a game of spin the bottle when they were fifteen and he ended up kissing Courfeyrac right there in front of everyone else. He’s not complaining—Courf is a great kisser, probably the result of too many brief “love affairs”, as he likes to call them, to count—but he just wishes that the bottle landed on Éponine instead. Now he wonders if he’ll ever know what her kisses taste like.

 _Shut the_ fuck _up, Gabriel Alexandre Enjolras,_ he tells himself sternly.

The two of them find themselves gazing into each other’s eyes for just a split second too long before Éponine turns red and clears her throat rather awkwardly, saying, “Well, should we get going?”

Enjolras nods rapidly, rather flustered by the way she’s looking at him. “Yeah, we should.”

Once they pack up the pillows and blankets and deflate the air mattress, the two of them hop back into the truck and then they’re off on another adventure.


	11. promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Due to having been single for quite some time, Éponine decides to propose a pact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ages: twenty-four and twenty-five

On Enjolras’s twenty-fifth birthday, Éponine proposes a pact.

He’s found work as an editor for a local newspaper and Éponine has just started working as a child welfare social worker, and the two of them are on their day off, sitting in the living room of the nicer, bigger apartment they moved into some time ago. Éponine is playing “Journey to the Past” on the piano and humming softly as Enjolras flips through a photo album his mother made for him as his birthday present this year, full of pictures of him and Éponine from the time they’re children up to now. He looked through the mail that morning to find a bulky, heavy package from his mother with a note saying it’s his birthday present, and now, he’s taking time to look through the photo album, unaware of the little smile on his face as he looks at a photograph from his seventh birthday. In the picture, Éponine is the one blowing out the candles, and he seems to be yelling in surprise as she has the most devious little grin on her face, and Enjolras grins at the memory. His father is still as disapproving as ever of his friendship with Éponine—one would think that he would be over it by now, since it’s been twenty-one years, but _no_ , his father is still a snobby, elitist piece of shit—but Enjolras still doesn’t give a shit. Éponine means more to him than his father ever has and ever will.

Éponine is tickling the ivories as she thinks about the fact that the both of them have been single for quite some time now—then again, Enjolras has never _not_ been single, which doesn’t make sense to Éponine, since he’s a ridiculously fit, good-looking guy. She’s had a string of one-night stands with various people from bars—she always goes back to their apartments instead of her own, since she shares it with Enjolras and wouldn’t want to disturb him—but they never turn out to be anything more than mere one-night stands. She’s painfully aware that she has feelings for Enjolras at this point, but she’s too fucking terrified to act upon them for fear of their friendship being ruined. He’s never indicated that he feels the same way anyway, so she thinks it’s better to just stay silent about how she’s been hopelessly pining for him for the last seventeen years.

 _Almost two fucking decades, Éponine,_ she reminds herself as she begins to play “Once Upon a December” until she stops abruptly, an absolutely insane idea popping into her head. Most of her doubts that Enjolras will ever agree to it, but it can’t possibly hurt to try, right? Besides, they’re best friends and practically platonic soulmates—although she sincerely wishes that it could also be another kind of soulmates—so it’s not like their friendship would be on the line.

Enjolras looks up from his photo album, rather caught off-guard by the sudden loss of music, and Éponine spins around on the piano stool, her dark eyes widening. “Hey, Gabriel, you know what we should do?”

A curious look crosses Enjolras’s face as he places the photo album on the empty space beside him, scooting towards her and asking, “What?”

“You know those marriage pacts people make?” When he shakes his head, Éponine sighs and explains, “You know, when two friends are just like ‘if we’re not married by the time we’re a certain age, we’ll marry each other’. I’ve been single for a little over four years now, and you’ve been single for, like, forever, although I don’t get why since you’re such a good-looking guy—” She laughs, trying to play it off as a simple compliment and not noticing how Enjolras turns bright red “—so why don’t we make one of those pacts?”

Enjolras feels his mouth go dry at such a proposal, and Éponine takes his silence as a sign that he doesn’t want to so she quickly backtracks, saying hastily, “I mean, if you don’t want to, I guess that’s cool, but—”

“No, ’Ponine, I actually think it’s a great idea,” Enjolras interrupts, his cheeks burning. It’s not like he’s ever going to fall for anyone else, since he’s been in love with her for nineteen years now, although he only realised it when he was eleven, five years after he really fell for her. “It’s not like I’m ever going to be in another relationship, anyway.” He laughs, his laughter eventually dying down as Éponine looks at him with a strange look on her face.

“What do you mean?” she asks, her heart skipping a beat at the thought that she might actually get to marry him one day until she tells herself to shut up.

 _Idiot!_ Enjolras feels like he could punch himself for letting that slip, and he tries to laugh it off, saying, “No, forget I said that. It was stupid. But yes, I think it’s a great idea.”

“You do?” Éponine asks, her eyes lighting up. She looks gorgeous like that—bathed in the soft yellow glow of the lamp beside her, her dark hair tumbling down her shoulders and her brown eyes sparkling.

“Yes, ’Ponine, I do,” Enjolras confirms, finding himself thinking, _There’s also the fact that I’m in love with you._

“Okay, then, so if we’re both still single by the time we’re thirty, we’ll just get married,” Éponine tells him, tilting her head for confirmation. Enjolras nods and Éponine laughs, clapping her hands together.

She spins around on her stool again, beginning to play another song on the piano, and Enjolras gazes at her back as she hums softly to “At the Beginning”, thinking about how he had first taught her to play the piano back when they were fourteen. Before she found out he could play guitar, she had known that he can play the piano and violin too, and as a result, she had asked for lessons and of course he obliged, and though she still struggles with the violin to this day, she’s now an expert at the piano, playing numerous songs effortlessly by ear. Seeing her playing the piano like a pro now brings back fond memories of how he had taught her to play the piano.

Enjolras picks the photo album up again and flips to a random page, finding a picture of him and Éponine at age fourteen, the both of them sitting on the piano bench with his hands on top of hers as he teaches her how to play the piano. He catches himself smiling at the picture; his mother had probably taken it when they were distracted by the song he was teaching her to play, which he remembers was “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”. He turns to gaze at her as she plays that beloved song from _Anastasia_ , which has become one of their favourite movies—and one of their favourite musicals, too, after they saw it on Broadway while on their road trip through the States—ever since they first saw it back as children.

He flips through the pages of the photo album as the song Éponine is currently playing comes to an end, and she almost immediately switches songs and starts playing “I See the Light” as Enjolras looks at pictures of the two of them, from their kindergarten days to adulthood now. He falls in love with her all over again as he flips through the pages, looking at pictures from their high school days, and he wonders if she would ever reciprocate his feelings.

For now, though, being her absolute best friend is more than enough.


	12. confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ten years have passed. It's time for Les Amis to open their time capsule.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ages: most twenty-seven, azelma twenty-five, and gavroche twenty-one

When they’re twenty-seven, Les Amis gather at Enjolras’s parents’ mansion to finally open their time capsule.

Enjolras and Éponine volunteer at the exact same time to go up to the attic to look for the time capsule, which they hid somewhere in a corner back when they were seventeen, and the two of them take their time in their search for it, combing through dusty bookshelves and mountains of boxes full of old things from three generations ago.

“Jesus, Gabriel, you have a family of hoarders,” Éponine comments as she brushes dust off a huge, old-fashioned wooden chest and opens it, her eyes widening when she finds loads of jewellery that could very well be worth thousands of euro. “Holy shit,” she whispers to herself.

“Did you find it?” Enjolras asks, turning around.

“No, but I found a fuckton of jewellery,” Éponine responds, taking out a box of earrings. “Does your mother know these are up here?”

“I don’t know,” Enjolras replies, turning around again to move boxes around in his search for the time capsule. She goes over and joins him, sliding her arm around his waist without a second thought. He feels his cheeks begin to grow hot, and he puts an arm around her as the two of them continue to look for the time capsule together, eventually finding a black box labelled “Time Capsule of Les Amis de l’ABC” in a corner of the attic hidden behind a tall stack of boxes filled with photo albums from forty years ago.

“Aha!” Éponine crows, detaching herself from Enjolras and reaching out to grab it. It’s heavier than she remembers it, but no matter—she can make it down the stairs to the living room with it in her arms. She and Enjolras carry the time capsule back downstairs, where all their friends are waiting in the living room. Everyone immediately perks up at the sight of that time capsule, and Éponine and Enjolras place it on top of the coffee table.

All of them just stare at it in silence for several minutes, most of them having forgotten what they put inside it, and then Courfeyrac clears his throat, breaking the silence. “Shall we open it?”

Everyone nods in unison, and with a deep breath, Enjolras steps forward and opens the black box.

They all begin to step forward and take their things out, Cosette shrieking in delight when she finds the hoodie she had been wearing when she and Marius first said ‘I love you’ to each other, and Éponine takes out that little toy fire truck that she had been playing with when everything began. As Enjolras takes his envelope out, he sees the fire truck and turns to Éponine, his blue eyes widening.

“You put that in there?” he asks in amazement, pulling her aside so they would be standing in a doorway, away from the others.

Éponine shrugs, feeling herself turn pink. “I had it when I first met you,” she replies, trying to be nonchalant as she adds softly, “It reminds me of the day my entire life changed for the better.”

Enjolras turns red, and he looks down at his envelope as Éponine does the same. “What’s in there?” she asks curiously as he carefully pries open the seal, managing to not rip the envelope as he does so.

“Just give me a moment.” He walks away to read the letter he had written to his future self ten years ago in private, reading each word twice as he processes everything. Once he’s done reading it, he walks back to Éponine, who’s still standing in the doorway far away from the others, spots of pink blooming in his cheeks as he holds it out to her. “Do you want to read it?”

“Why not?” Éponine takes the somewhat wrinkled sheet of paper from him and beginning to read his neat, small, slightly slanted handwriting.

_Dear Gabriel Alexandre Enjolras, age 27,_

_This is pretty awkward, since I’m not entirely sure how to write a letter to my future self, so let’s start with the typical letter opener—how are you? This is me, Gabriel Alexandre Enjolras, aged seventeen, writing to you, Gabriel Alexandre Enjolras, aged twenty-seven. What are you up to? Right now, I am doing pretty well in school, and I have the best group of friends I used to dream of having when I was four, before I met the girl who changed everything._

Éponine’s eyes widen and Enjolras finds himself holding his breath as she continues to read after freezing in place for a few moments. She decides to read it from the beginning despite barely having gotten through the first paragraph the first time.

_Dear Gabriel Alexandre Enjolras, age 27,_

_This is pretty awkward, since I’m not entirely sure how to write a letter to my future self, so let’s start with the typical letter opener—how are you? This is me, Gabriel Alexandre Enjolras, aged seventeen, writing to you, Gabriel Alexandre Enjolras, aged twenty-seven. What are you up to? Right now, I am doing pretty well in school, and I have the best group of friends I used to dream of having when I was four, before I met the girl who changed everything._

_But I’m getting ahead of myself._

_Right now, I am in the photography club at school and I volunteer at animal shelters with Jehan. I’ll admit, I’m mostly in it for the dogs, but I really do love volunteering there. Father wants me to participate in mock trial since he wants me to pursue a career as a lawyer, but when have I ever listened to Father? He’s an awful person, and the only person in my family that I care about is Mum. Is he still a terrible person? I wouldn’t be surprised if he still is, to be honest, since he’s such a snobby, elitist piece of shit. Also, I happen to be the editor of the school newspaper, and journalism is really quite intriguing. Are you still interested in journalism?_

_Are you still hard on yourself for not reaching your best potential? If you still are, here’s some advice: don’t be. What you_ have _accomplished is enough, and you’re enough, as I’m sure ’Ponine will tell you time and time again._

_Again, I keep getting ahead of myself._

_Whenever I try to envision myself ten years from now, my mind keeps wandering to the what-ifs—what if I haven’t found a job by then? What if I have no idea what to do with my life? What if I’ve lost the love of my life forever to some other person and it’s too late for me to tell her how I feel?_

_Ah, yes, dear ’Ponine. How is she? Is she still irritating at times? Is she still short? Is she still as radiant as ever? Does she still have that laugh that sounds like angels singing? Does she still have that dimpled smile that makes everything bad seem like it’s going to be all right again? Does she still proudly flaunt her bisexuality with all of those T-shirts I say are dumb to her face but really compliment behind her back? How much has she changed in ten years? Right now, she’s the most perfect person I’ve ever met, and I feel so blessed to be able to call her my best friend no matter what. But seriously, is she still that amazing? Is she still the main source of light in your world? Most importantly—are you still in love with her?_

_To be very honest, I would not blame you if you’re still in love with her since she’s just that incredible, but have you actually told her? From the time I’m writing this, I’ve been in love with her for the past eleven years, and by the time you’re reading this, it’ll have been twenty-one years. Twenty-one years really is too long to stay silent about feelings as strong as this. If you haven’t told her at this point, then do it right now. Stop reading this letter and tell her. Even if she’s with someone, tell her. I’m sure you’ll feel a lot better when you’ve told her._

_Okay, so have you told her? Good. There is probably a zero percent chance of her ever returning your (and my) feelings, but at least you’ll have told her. And in the unlikely chance that she does return your feelings, well… Just go for it._

_So I suppose that’s it. I don’t know how to end a letter to myself ten years from now, so…_

_I hope you’ve fulfilled all of your goals at this point and that you’ve told Éponine how you feel. If you haven’t, then I don’t know what to say._

_Best of luck, Gabriel Alexandre Enjolras, age 17._

Éponine looks up with a look of utter, complete shock on her face, caught completely off-guard by this revelation. Enjolras _loves_ her? In all of her nineteen years of pining for him, she’s never picked up any hints he might have dropped that might have indicated any feelings he might have for her, but maybe she’s just an oblivious fuck like she’s so often thought _he_ is. Enjolras’s lips are pressed tightly together, his face rather flushed, and he seems to be holding his breath as he awaits a response from her. She stares at him with wide eyes, shocked by this new information.

“You—you love me?” she manages to choke out, her voice coming out strangled. Enjolras turns even redder and nods. Feeling the knot in her throat growing bigger, she asks, “Since when?”

“I’ve always loved you, ’Ponine,” he responds simply, a slight quiver in his voice. “I’ve loved you nearly my whole life.”

“Twenty-one years, Gabriel,” Éponine points out, her voice still shaky. “Twenty-one years, and you never told me?”

Enjolras feels his mouth go dry. “I don’t think you feel the same way. And why would you ask that?”

Éponine steps closer to him and stashes the letter away in her back pocket, looking up directly at him. “If you had told me before, I would have been able to do this sooner.”

And then Enjolras feels Éponine grabbing his face and standing on tiptoe to forcefully press her lips against his in a fiery kiss, and his blue eyes widen as he feels like he could faint, rather slow to get with the program before his mind and body completely catch up. He slides his arms around her waist and pulls her against him, kissing her back equally forcefully and feeling her move her hands up into his hair, messing up his golden curls with her fingers as she kisses him, all of her feelings from the past nineteen years being poured out in a single passionate kiss. The two of them stand in the doorway, locked in an intense kiss until the both of them feel like they can no longer breathe, at which point they pull away from each other, panting slightly, their faces flushed. Éponine gazes up into Enjolras’s eyes, finally knowing what it feels like to have his lips on hers, and she laughs softly as she runs her fingers through his hair.

“I love you, you absolute idiot,” she confesses quietly, their faces inches apart. “I’ve been in love with your cute, clueless ass for the past nineteen years.”

Enjolras lets out a deep, rather throaty laugh, ridiculously, preposterously happy about the fact that she returns his feelings after all. If the two of them weren’t pressed together, he’s sure that he would definitely barely be restraining himself from jumping and screaming with joy. She loves him! Éponine _loves_ him! His ’Ponine! His firecracker! “So I guess we’ve both been oblivious idiots.”

Éponine smiles up at him, that sly, rather devious smile that always has him hungry for more, and she whispers, “I guess we have.” She closes the gap between them by leaning in and kissing him again, this time more tender and gentle than before, and he sighs against her lips as he pulls her close, kissing her back equally enthusiastically in that doorway, and he feels her lips part against his and decides to go for it, his tongue slowly slipping into her mouth, and she’s surprised to find that he’s surprisingly good with his tongue, a soft moan escaping her lips and spurring him on, and he kisses her even more passionately, unable to get enough of this perfect girl he’s been in love with for nearly his whole life.

Back in the middle of the living room, Courfeyrac is in the middle of an impassioned speech about how much that hair band he had gotten from the first girl he had sex with means to him until his eyes dart to the doorway where Éponine and Enjolras are standing, and his mouth drops open as he lets out a noise that sounds like a cross between a scream and a squawk. Everyone turns to see what he’s looking at, and they all promptly fall silent in amazement and disbelief at the sight of Éponine and Enjolras _kissing_.

After several moments of silence in which they all just stare at Éponine and Enjolras, who seem to be lost in their own little world as they share a kiss in the doorway, Courfeyrac breaks the silence by yelling out, “Well, it’s about damn time!”

Éponine and Enjolras immediately break apart, startled by the sound of Courfeyrac’s voice, and they turn their heads to find the rest of the Amis staring at them with their jaws hanging open. A fiery red blush rises to their cheeks as they realise they were caught, and they avoid eye contact with everyone else as Cosette adds smugly, “We’ve been wondering when you two would suck it up and make out.”

Éponine turns even redder, almost as red as Enjolras’s shirt, as she stammers out, “You—you guys knew?”

Grantaire throws his head back and cackles, barely managing to say in between laughs, “You two aren’t exactly the most subtle people when it comes to feelings. You’ve obviously been pining for each other for as long as we’ve known you.”

“Éponine, my dear, everyone can see it,” Musichetta chimes in, smirking as she stands between Joly and Bossuet, her arms around their waists. “Everyone but you two. Hell, I’m sure Enjy’s own mother can see it. Madame Enjolras!”

 _Are they seriously calling my mother right now?_ Enjolras thinks incredulously to himself as his mother makes an appearance on the stairs, seeming rather concerned.

“Do you need anything?” she asks, looking straight at Musichetta. After all these years of knowing her son’s friends, she’s become quite fond of them as opposed to her husband, who still thinks their Gabriel should be making friends with other people of the same social ranking as they. “And I’ve told you—just call me Agathe.”

“Madame, would you agree if we told you that it seems like your son and his friend Éponine have been making heart eyes at each other for at least the last decade or so?” Feuilly prompts, making Enjolras groan audibly as Éponine buries her face in his chest to stifle her giggles and hide her mortification.

“Oh, they’ve been making heart eyes for longer than that,” Enjolras’s mother replies as if it’s the most normal thing in the world, her eyes searching for her son and landing on him with his arms around Éponine’s waist as they stand in the doorway, the two of them pressed up against each other, and her lips twitch at the sight of Éponine’s face buried in Enjolras’s chest and his own face all red. She goes back upstairs to her bedroom, a satisfied smile on her face, and all of the Amis save Éponine and Enjolras burst out laughing.

Éponine pulls away to look back up at Enjolras, rolling her eyes as a little smile tugs at the corners of her lips. “We really have been idiots, haven’t we?” she asked, gazing into his shining blue eyes.

“Yes, we have,” he chuckles in reply, pulling her in for another kiss.


	13. first time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Éponine and Enjolras finally have sex, and it's goddamn amazing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: light smut if you squint
> 
> ages: twenty-seven and twenty-eight

About a month into their new relationship, they have sex for the first time.

Éponine can’t imagine why they didn’t do it sooner by the time their third round is done, and they’re both completely spent as they collapse naked beside each other in their bed, breathing heavily and coming down from their high. Since they already live together anyway, they decided to make Éponine’s smaller bedroom into an extra guest room at the beginning of their relationship, and now the both of them sleep in what used to only be Enjolras’s room. The two of them are covered in sweat and tangled up in the sheets, their chests heaving. Éponine turns on her side to face Enjolras, a little smile on her face.

“You know, no other man’s ever given me an orgasm before,” she tells him as he shifts to face her too, and she giggles at the blush that rises to his cheeks. “Where the hell did you learn that?”

“Would you laugh at me if I told you I asked Courf and Cosette how to best pleasure a woman?” Enjolras asks sheepishly, his golden curls slightly damp with sweat and sticking to his forehead. Éponine laughs out loud, pulling the blanket up to their necks and burying her face in a pillow to stifle her laughter, rather touched that he cares so much about her pleasure as well as his own.

“I love you, Gabriel,” she says after her laughter dies down, taking his face in her small hands and leaning in for another kiss. He sighs against her lips, her incredibly soft lips that he still can’t quite believe he gets to kiss whenever they both feel like it, and he kisses her right back, pulling her small, sweaty, sticky naked body against his own, and she feels the space between her thighs heat up as his junk rubs up against her. Once they break apart, the two of them simply lie next to each other, completely exhausted from the three _immensely_ satisfying rounds they had.

Éponine sighs and snuggles up to Enjolras as she thinks about how he made her come with his fingers and his tongue and eventually penetration, although she can’t come from penetration alone and had him pressing kisses all over her body to keep his mouth occupied, making her lose her mind. Aside from being good at playing the piano, those fingers could be put to _very_ good use and make a girl scream when used right, and good _God_ , he put those long fingers of his to damn good use.

“So is that marriage pact we made two years ago still going?” she asks, looking up at him and resting her chin on his chest as her hand traces his abs.

Enjolras lets out a deep, husky laugh, asking, “Do you want me to be completely honest with you?”

Éponine nods, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Always.”

“If I could, I would ask you to marry me right this instant, firecracker,” he tells her softly, his blue eyes shining as he gazes down at her, completely, deliriously happy about the fact that not only are they best friends, but they’re also _together_ and she’s here with him and they’re the happiest they’ve ever been. He watches as a pink blush fills Éponine’s cheeks at his words.

“Well, then, I guess we’re engaged now,” she tells him, laughing and giving him that adorable little smile of hers before leaning in for a kiss.

“We’re not officially engaged until I get you a ring,” he replies, pulling back to kiss her forehead.

“Won’t the others think we’re moving too fast?” Éponine questions, seeming rather concerned about what the others would think.

Enjolras shakes his head. “We’ve established that we have feelings for each other for almost as long as we’ve known each other, haven’t we? We’re best friends, ’Ponine, and I _know_ that this is just right. When you know, you know, and I know I don’t want to spend my life with anyone other than you.”

Éponine feels herself smiling at his words, rather overwhelmed by how much she loves him right now, and she leans in for a kiss, pressing her lips to his. Enjolras gladly returns the kiss, his lips parting slightly as she slips her tongue into his mouth, a soft moan sounding from the back of her throat. He rolls on top of her, still kissing her passionately and their tongues entwining in their mouths until he pulls away, his lips moving up her jaw and down her neck and then further down, soft moans and sighs escaping her lips as he presses kisses all the way down her stomach. She squirms when he settles in between her legs, and soon she’s moaning and sighing as he presses kisses to her most sensitive areas, licking his way around and leaving hickeys between her thighs. Her hands find their way into his hair as he laps at her hypnotisingly slowly, and she grabs clumps of his golden curls in her hands as he licks into her, leaving her begging for more. Her thighs wrap tighter around his head and her moans steadily grow louder as he continues to lap at her, pressing kisses down low as her moans steadily turn into shouts and squeals, the sound of her moans filling the room as she pulls at his hair, her thighs wrapping around his head, and she squeezes her eyes shut, seeing stars behind her eyes as her loud moan of his name echoes through the room. When he’s back to lying beside her with her snuggled into him, she lets out a long, satisfied sigh from that absolutely amazing orgasm he just gave her.

“God, you’re good at that,” Éponine remarks softly, giggling and gazing into his eyes.

Enjolras gives her a sly, devious smirk, beginning to crawl back underneath the sheets as he whispers in reply, “Oh, that was just the beginning.”


	14. wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finally tie the knot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> age: twenty-nine

Two years later, they tie the knot.

Enjolras’s mother has tears running down her face as she watches her son and his bride gaze into each other’s eyes as they recite their wedding vows while Enjolras’s father looks on in disdain. It seems as if he’s never gotten over the fact that his son decided to befriend and gradually fall in love with and marry a woman of a different social standing than them.

The wedding is being held at the Bois de Boulogne, and all of Les Amis are standing to the side of Éponine and Enjolras and crying, from dabbing at their eyes silently with lace handkerchiefs to flat-out sobbing their eyes out, and Jehan, who is particularly emotional that day, started crying even harder when he watched Éponine walk down the aisle with Gavroche and still hasn’t stopped crying hysterically even now, when the couple is reciting their wedding vows. There aren’t a lot of guests—just close friends and some relatives that Enjolras just barely tolerates, and they like it that way. Marius and Cosette’s daughter Apolline, barely one year old, is sitting up front with Enjolras’s mother, and she has a little smile on her freckled face as she watches her Auntie Éponine and Uncle Enjolras.

Enjolras gazes at Éponine with tears in his eyes as he says his wedding vows, stumbling on a few words as he gets all choked up at the sight of her in her white wedding dress with long sleeves of lace and her dark hair twisted into an updo, white flowers in her hair. She seems to have tears filling her eyes too at the mere sight of him—he looks exceptionally handsome in his black tuxedo, with the flowers in his lapel and the crimson bowtie, and he can’t stop staring at his bride through blurred vision as she says her own wedding vows, promising to stay with him come what may and to love him forever.

 _How did we get here?_ he wonders as he gazes at her, this gorgeous, perfect angel he's actually  _marrying_ —marrying! He’s marrying his childhood best friend! His childhood best friend he’s been in love with for twenty-three years!—and he remembers all twenty-five years he’s known her and how they had gone from friends to best friends and eventually best friends who also happen to be lovers. He still remembers when they first met—she had been this stubborn little three-year-old girl determined to keep the toy truck Cosette’s mother had given her, and he had been this friendless four-year-old boy with a big head. He keeps himself from laughing at the memory of the playground nickname Airhead.

Once the officiant declares them husband and wife, they seal their marriage with a kiss as their guests applaud them politely, the Amis and Enjolras’s mother sobbing even harder at the sight of the newly wed couple. Enjolras grins at Éponine, ridiculously happy, as she gives him one of those dazzling dimpled smiles right back, her arms loosely hanging around his neck as she places a quick kiss on his lips once more, whispering, “Monsieur Éponine.”

He lets out a gentle laugh, leaning in until their foreheads brush as he replies softly, “Madame Gabriel.”

She giggles and leans up to kiss him, clutching her bouquet in her hand, as Cosette lets out a dreamy sigh behind Éponine and Jehan loudly blows his nose on a lace handkerchief of his. She whispers against his lips, “I love you so much, bestie.”

“I love you too, my little firecracker,” he responds quietly, his lips curving into a smile. She laughs softly at the little childhood nickname.

An hour later, the two of them are dancing their first dance as a married couple at their wedding reception, where all of Enjolras’s relatives, mostly from his father’s side, are present and undoubtedly sizing Éponine up. As they dance around to Ed Sheeran, Éponine feels rather unnerved by all the judgmental eyes on her, and she whispers up to Enjolras, “They hate me, don’t they?"

“’Ponine, don’t even think about them,” Enjolras whispers back soothingly, kissing her forehead. “You know they don’t matter. My father only let my mother let me have a wedding reception if we invited all of his stuck-up, elitist relatives, and they’re a bit… old-fashioned.”

“As in they think you should have married someone of your social status instead of little ol’ me from the slums,” Éponine prompts as he twirls her around the dance floor before pulling her back towards him again.

“Specifically a girl,” he replies, grimacing as he continues, “even though they know damn well that I could have ended up just as easily with a man.”

“Your relatives homophobic like your dad, then?” she asks, frowning slightly. Ever since she and Enjolras made the decision to come out to his parents, his father hasn’t spoken of it since. Enjolras’s mother had promised to support them through and through, and to this day, she still loves learning more about how to be a good ally.

“Unfortunately so,” Enjolras confirms. “I’m sure they think I ‘chose a side’ and that I chose ‘the right side’.” He rolls his eyes and laughs, leaning in and pressing his forehead against hers as he whispers, “I didn’t choose a side. I chose a person, and that person’s you, firecracker.”

Éponine giggles and kisses him once again, whispering in reply, “I chose you too, bestie.”

Gazing at him now, looking all dapper in his tux, she realises just how much she loves him, realises how glad she is that he approached her on that playground twenty-five years ago and how they’ve been inseparable since. His mother loves her, and she’s now her mother-in-law and she couldn’t ask for a better mother-in-law, although her _father_ -in-law still dislikes her greatly. No matter—she doesn’t care about him anyway.

She loves him, her Gabriel, and they’ve been best friends for nearly their whole lives and they’re _married_ now. God, it’s so surreal to think about—they met on a playground twenty-five years ago and proceeded to become best friends, and now here they are, husband and wife. She remembers all they’ve been through together—making new friends, eventually forming a gang of misfits who go by the name Les Amis de l’ABC, coming out to each other and proceeding to find out that nobody else they’re friends with is straight either, him helping her deal with her first heartbreak and then the next, the United States road trip they had gone on once they graduated college, moving in together… She loves him so much, it’s unbelievable. She can now proudly call herself the wife of her gorgeous best friend, and she couldn’t be happier about that.

“You know what? I lucked out,” Éponine remarks to Enjolras as the two of them waltz around the dance floor, acutely aware of all the eyes on them. “Gabriel, I seriously lucked out.”

“I think I’m the one who lucked out, ’Ponine,” he replies earnestly, leaning in to kiss her once again. He just got married to his smoking hot best friend, and he doubts that he’ll ever be this happy again. After over two decades of pining for her, the two of them finally got together and now here they are, happy and married and still irrevocably in love with each other. “I love you.”

She smiles back up at him, leaning in to press a quick kiss to his lips. “I love you, too.”

That night, they’re back at their apartment, which is just as they left it—messy and disorganised, much like themselves. The two of them are sitting on the couch in the room, still in their wedding attire as they share a bottle of champagne while _The Princess Diaries_ plays on the TV, when Éponine breaks the silence that’s been between them for some time. “Have you ever thought of having kids, Gabe?” she asks, turning her head to look at him.

Enjolras nearly chokes on his champagne, caught off-guard by her sudden question. “’Ponine, are you saying you want kids?”

Éponine is surprised at his reaction—not quite negative, but also not completely positive—and she replies hastily, “I mean, if you don’t want kids, then—”

“No, no, I definitely want kids!” Enjolras assures her, placing his glass of champagne back on the coffee table as he shifts to face her. “I’d love for nothing more than to start a family with you, firecracker,” he confides, turning slightly pink. “Do you—do you want to try right now, or—”

“No, I think we should give it a year or two,” Éponine replies, finding herself grinning at his enthusiasm. “Just enjoy married life for now, you know? The kids can wait. I mean, Marius and Cosette already have a little girl toddling around, but a year or two isn’t too long.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” Enjolras stands up as Éponine does the same, and she lets out a shriek when he scoops her up in his arms bridal-style, smiling rather slyly and leaning in for a kiss before they make their way towards their room as he tells her, “For now, I’m just going to enjoy my wife’s company as much as I possibly can.”

Éponine giggles and leans in, putting her arms around his neck as she replies softly, “Good idea.”


	15. parenthood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a new addition to the Enjolras-Thénardier clan, and she has dark hair, blue eyes, and dimples.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> age: thirty/thirty-one age range

Roughly nine months after their one-year anniversary, Éponine gives birth to their daughter.

Éponine and Enjolras sit next to each other on the hospital bed in one of the rooms in the postpartum ward, their little baby girl cradled in Éponine’s arms, and the two of them are waiting for her to wake up as they chat together, Éponine’s head on Enjolras’s shoulder.

“Look at her,” she whispers, laughing. “We made her, Gabriel. We made this tiny human and I pushed her right out of me!”

Enjolras laughs and turns his head to kiss her temple, cheeks streaked with joyful tears as he replies softly, “I’m so proud of you, firecracker.”

Months ago, he had been thrilled to find out that she was pregnant, and the two of them immediately started redecorating their extra bedroom—formerly Éponine’s bedroom—and making it into a nursery for the baby, painting the walls green and buying a crib and everything. When they told the Amis, Grantaire in particular had been ridiculously excited at the thought of having a little kid who happened to be the kid of two of his best friends to play with, and Éponine had tried to convince Enjolras to let Grantaire be godfather, although eventually the title went to Combeferre. Well, Grantaire’s just going to be the favourite uncle, then.

During the actual birth process, Éponine had had tears streaming down her face as she crushed Enjolras’s hand, crying out from the unimaginable pain that came with giving birth. She had sworn that she was never going to do this again, and Enjolras hadn’t objected—one child was more than enough for them. Cosette and Azelma had been in the delivery room with them at Éponine’s request, and it seemed that their presence had kept Éponine from completely going nuts, and now here they are, in the postpartum ward with a baby in Éponine’s arms.

Éponine turns to Enjolras and says, “No more kids?”

He shakes his head, scrunching up his face. “No more kids. One is enough.” He leans in and presses his forehead to hers, whispering, “I love you, ’Ponine. Thank you so much.”

The little baby girl in Éponine’s arms stirs just then, and the two of them gaze down at their baby as she opens her eyes, looking at the tiny newborn in awe. She has tufts of Éponine’s dark hair and Enjolras’s blue eyes, and when she gurgles and smiles briefly up at her parents, they see that she has Éponine’s dimples. Enjolras feels like he’s going to cry as he gazes down at his tiny daughter, hardly able to believe that he helped make such a tiny, delicate human being.

“Hi, baby,” Éponine whispers down to their baby in that little baby voice Enjolras once heard Éponine use on Grantaire as a joke. “I’m your Maman, and this is Papa.” She passes their daughter to her husband, and Enjolras is terrified of dropping his little baby as he remembers to support the neck, gazing down at his daughter with a look resembling childlike wonder in his eyes.

“I’m so glad I’m finally meeting you, baby,” Enjolras murmurs to the baby, seeing that brief little smile once again before it fades away from her little face. He turns to Éponine and whispers, “What should we name her?”

Éponine shrugs. “I don’t know, what do _you_ want to name her?”

“Liberté,” he says sheepishly in reply, turning a fiery shade of red when Éponine’s eyes widen in horror as she shakes her head almost violently.

“Gabriel Alexandre Enjolras, we are _not_ naming our daughter that,” she tells him firmly, smacking him on the head. “There’s no way we’re naming our daughter that.” After a few more moments of consideration, she suggests, “What about Marianne?”

Enjolras’s blue eyes light up. “Marianne?” he repeats.

“Yeah, Marianne!” Éponine reaffirms brightly, her brown eyes sparkling. “She’s the symbol of liberty, isn’t she? So we can technically name her after liberty without actually naming her Liberté, if that makes any sense.”

“That’s a great idea,” Enjolras agrees, thinking that Marianne has a much nicer ring to it than Liberté does. “So her name is Marianne, then?”

“Yes, it is,” Éponine confirms, grinning. “I’ve always wanted to name a kid of mine Séraphine, so maybe Marianne Séraphine Enjolras?”

“I love that,” Enjolras tells her, leaning in for a tender kiss and feeling her lips curve into a smile against his. When the two of them break apart, Enjolras passes Marianne back to Éponine and she leans down to kiss her baby’s forehead, delighted beyond belief. They just gaze at their little daughter for several moments, seeing how her blue eyes repeatedly fluttered open and shut again and feeling how soft her tufts of dark brown hair were, and she gurgles up at her parents.

“You have a name now, baby,” Éponine whispers to the child, laughing.

Enjolras puts his arm around his wife and pulls her closer to him, smiling at his best friend. “Welcome to the world, Marianne Séraphine Enjolras.”

Éponine snuggles into Enjolras’s side once again, laying her head on his shoulder, and the two of them gaze down at their daughter as the little newborn falls back asleep in her mother’s arms, peaceful and quiet. Éponine whispers, “Should we allow the others in now?”

Enjolras nods. “I think it’s high time we let them get to know their niece.”

He gets up and goes out of the room momentarily, returning with all of Les Amis in tow, all of them buzzing with excitement at the thought of finally getting to meet another of their little honorary nieces. The little blonde-haired, freckle-faced Apolline is in Marius’s arms as Cosette rushes to Éponine’s side, gazing in awe at her new little niece.

“Apolline’s going to love her,” Cosette tells Éponine excitedly, sitting down beside her friend. Beginning to get ideas, Cosette begins to babble, “We can have them have playdates and maybe they can date when they’re older!”

Éponine laughs at Cosette’s enthusiasm, replying, “Maybe they can. Maybe they will.” Éponine gazes down at Marianne, murmuring, “Marianne’s going to be spoiled with so much love.”

“That’s a wonderful name,” Cosette remarks sincerely, kissing Éponine’s cheek just as Grantaire makes his way over to the bed to sit on the other edge.

“Can I hold her?” he requests uncharacteristically timidly, reaching out for the little baby.

Éponine nods and hands Marianne to Grantaire, telling him quietly, “Support the neck.” Once Éponine and Enjolras’s daughter is in Grantaire’s arms, he feels tears fill his eyes and blur his vision as he gazes down at his honorary niece, adoring the baby girl almost instantly.

“Hi, baby,” he whispers. “I’m your Uncle R.” He gasps in surprise when Marianne opens her blue, blue eyes, and he calls out, “She has your eyes, Enjy!”

“Don’t talk so loud! It’ll upset her,” Cosette scolds Grantaire, taking Marianne from him and bouncing the baby in her arms slightly. “Hi, baby! Hi, baby Marianne. I’m Auntie Cosette. Not by blood, of course—that would be weird, since your Maman and I were just talking about how you and my Apolline could date one day, but you get it, don’t you, baby? I love you, Marianne, and I’m always there for you just like your Maman and Papa and aunties and uncles will be.”

Éponine watches in amusement as Cosette talks to Marianne in that cute little baby voice of hers, and she feels Enjolras’s hand on her shoulder and turns to him. She smiles when he leans down to kiss her forehead, turning faintly pink when he does so. “What’s up, Gabe?”

Enjolras sits down beside his wife, saying casually to her, “Oh, just thinking about how I married the most wonderful woman in the world.” He presses a kiss to her temple, thinking about how although she isn’t perfect—that’s an unreasonable and unfair expectation—she’s the best thing in his life, and she’s brought another of the best things in his life into the world. “I love you, firecracker.”

Éponine turns her head and leans in to press her lips to his, her lips curving into a gentle smile against his as she whispers in reply, “I love you too, nerd.”


	16. back to the beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been thirty years, and now they're back where they began.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a nice little ending to finish this little mini multi-chapter!! if you've read this all the way to the end, then hello! thank you so much for taking some time out of your day(s?) to read it!
> 
> age: about thirty-four/thirty-five

On a crisp autumn morning in early September, two parents in their thirties are walking down the pavement, each of them holding one of their four-year-old daughter’s hands. She’s a bright-eyed young thing, with a head full of dark, wavy brown hair, rosy cheeks, and the brightest blue eyes a little girl could have. She toddles along on her short little legs, clutching her parents’ hands as they make their way to a pretty, colourful little building. It’s her first day of kindergarten, and though she’s rather anxious about having to separate from her beloved parents for the first time, she’s excited to meet and make new friends other than her best friend Apolline Pontmercy-Fauchelevent.

Once they reach the gates of the kindergarten, the little girl lets go of her mother’s hand and jumps up into her father’s arms, and the three of them are greeted by a kind woman in her fifties as the little girl clings to her father, her chubby little arms around his neck. The woman ushers the family into the building, where she takes them on a tour of the classrooms and the playground and everything.

“Madame and Monsieur Enjolras, is it not?” When they nod in confirmation, the woman turns to the little girl and says sweetly, “And this must be Marianne! Hello!”

Marianne’s father nudges her, an encouraging smile on his face as he tells her, “Say hello, Marianne.”

“Hello,” she greets rather timidly, her blue eyes shining as she looks the woman up and down.

“Would you like a tour of the building?” Despite already knowing it like the back of their hand, Marianne’s parents nod in confirmation, and they follow the woman around as she takes them on a tour of the kindergarten, from the library to the playground. Once they’re back where they began, Marianne’s father puts her back down on the ground and kneels down.

“Your Maman and I are going to have to go, Marianne,” he tells her softly, caressing her pudgy little cheek. “We’re not going to be gone for long. We’ll pick you up at the end of the day. Do you like it here?”

Marianne nods. “Yes, I like it here, Papa.”

“Good,” he replies, smiling at her and leaning in to confide in a whisper, “I used to go here, you know.”

Marianne giggles and throws her arms around her father’s neck, kissing his cheek. He hugs her right back as her mother watches on with a fond, dimpled smile on her face, her arms crossed across her chest. When Marianne’s father lets go of her, she toddles over to her mother and throws her arms around her as she kneels down. She whispers into her daughter’s ear, “I love you so much, _mon coeur_.” Her smile grows wider as Marianne presses a kiss to her cheek, and once she lets go of her, she tells her daughter, “We’re going to go see Grandmère today after school! I bet she can’t wait to hear all about your first day of kindergarten. Now go have fun!”

“Bye bye, Maman!” Marianne calls as the older woman whisks her away to the playground. “Bye bye, Papa!”

Her parents watch as Marianne goes out onto the playground, running around on her short little legs, and the two of them follow each other out to stand at the edge of the playground, watching the children playing and being reminded of their own childhood.

“Remember when we first met here?” Éponine reminds Enjolras, her hand finding his and lacing their fingers together. He chuckles softly at the memory, nodding.

“I didn’t know it at the time,” he replies quietly, “but I met the love of my life on that day.”

She laughs and leans closer to him, wrapping her arm around his as they gaze at the little children, fondly reminiscing their glory days. They both still remember the day they met, clear as day—Éponine with her little toy fire truck and Enjolras sitting on the swings, alone and observant. The two of them had connected almost instantly, forming what would come to be an inseparable bond, and as the years passed, they did everything together—one could only refer to them as childhood best friends. Somewhere along the way, they had fallen for each other, and though it took a good twenty years for the both of them to finally get together, it had been completely worth it—they’re now happily married and with a daughter, the best daughter they could ever ask for, and their group of friends is still as tight-knit as ever.

Enjolras remembers the first time he saw her—this stubborn little three-year-old girl, absolutely determined to keep her fire truck and standing up to the typical playground bullies, and he had been a friendless four-year-old with a giant head. He had approached her and told the bullies to back off before Mademoiselle Fantine, dear Cosette’s mother, intervened, and then Éponine had declared them friends and they’ve been inseparable ever since.

It’s funny how life works—they had thought their kind of story, the story in which childhood friends fall for each other and promptly live happily ever after, was a thing of fiction and fairytales, and yet here they are, living what still feels like a fairytale. Actually, it more closely resembles a YA novel written purely for wish fulfilment, but whatever.

The two of them gaze at their daughter beginning to talk to the other children, looking all bright-eyed and delighted and occasionally sneaking glances to look at her parents, who give her little waves of the hand. Éponine laughs and buries her face in Enjolras’s shoulder, whispering, “I love you, nerd.”

He turns his head to kiss her temple, whispering in reply, “I love you too, firecracker.”

Éponine turns to face him, her arms hanging around his neck as she gazes into his twinkling blue eyes, a soft smile on her face. “We’re back where we began,” she murmurs to him, leaning in until their faces are mere inches apart.

Enjolras chuckles and bows his head, their foreheads touching as memories of the past thirty years or so race through his mind. He’s married to his best friend, his childhood best friend, and he remembers all they’ve been through together and how close they were growing up, and how close they still are now. He remembers their days of youth, wild and carefree and impulsive—their wonderful glory days, the days he so often gets nostalgic about whenever he flips through one of the numerous photo albums his mother made for him. He still remembers growing up with Éponine—casual displays of affection, sharing beds because they’ve been doing it since they were children, referring to each other as “home” and feeling safe in each other’s embrace, forehead kisses, the effortless trust that comes with being best friends, deep talks late at night while the two of them sit on the roof of his parents’ mansion… God, he was pining for her so hard back then, and now here he is, happily married to her. It’s more than he ever bargained for, and he’s eternally grateful for it.

“I love you, my little firecracker,” Enjolras whispers to Éponine. The two of them are back where they began, back at the edge of the playground on which it all started, and it’s rather unbelievable to think about how far they’ve come since then. “’Ponine, I really love you. So much.”

Éponine merely smiles in reply and closes the gap between them, pressing her lips to his in a tender kiss and sighing contentedly at the feeling of his lips against hers, and she giggles softly when she feels him smile into the kiss, pulling him closer to her as she stands on tiptoe to kiss him. He pulls her closer, his arms wrapped around her waist, and he feels one of her hands move up into his hair, running her fingers through his golden curls as she kisses him, gentle and loving as if they have all the time in the world. Once they break apart, Éponine leans in until their foreheads brush, a soft smile on her face.

She looks up and steals a glance at the playground, picking out the exact spot where she and her Gabriel first spoke and promptly became friends, and she laughs to herself at the thought of how far they’ve come. She turns back to Enjolras, pressing one more light kiss to his lips and whispering back, “I love you too, Gabriel.”

The two of them stand and watch their daughter playing with the other children, little contented smiles on their faces as they wondered if the same thing that happened with them would happen to their daughter. They recall how one meeting on this very playground had gone on to shape their entire future, in which they found a constant in each other.

All because the little boy with the sapphire eyes went to defend the little girl with the dimpled smile.


End file.
